Tag: 2028 elections

Cash for crowds scandal as lobbyist ‘offered hundreds of dollars to recruit attendees for JD Vance speech’

Vice President JD Vance‘s appearance in a state critical to the 2028 Republican presidential nomination is raising eyebrows due to a lobbyist’s bid to entice attendees.

Ahead of a rally Vance headlined in Des Moines with Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn that took place last Tuesday, a text message was sent by an Iowa ethanol lobbyist recruiting spectators to attend. The messages contained an offer of payment.

The text, obtained and published by Iowa Starting Line read:

‘Gentlemen, Jake Swanson here. I wanted to invite you to join me in seeing Vice President JD Vance this afternoon in Des Moines. I do some work for an ethanol company and so if you’re able to join, I will give you $100, and for anyone that you recruit, an additional $25. No limit on referrals, so if someone recruits a group of 20 to show up, that’s $500.’

Swanson is a lobbyist and a former policy adviser to Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds.

In a statement to Iowa Starting Line, Swanson defended the move: ‘I love ethanol and what it does for our state. 

‘So I was happy to bring some Iowa State kids to the rally to celebrate all the things Trump-Vance have done for biofuels and I think there’s opportunity for so much more. This is what I like to do in my own personal spare time,’ Swanson noted.

The Daily Mail reached out for comment to the Vice President’s office, which did not respond in time for publication. There is no suggestion that Vance or his team were aware of Swanson’s actions. Swanson was also contacted for additional comment.

Keep reading

AOC Responds to 2028 Run Speculation: ‘My Ambition Is Way Bigger’ Than the Presidency, Wants to Lock in Socialist Policies ‘Forever’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded to speculation about her 2028 presidential ambitions during a speech on Friday night by saying that her real ambition is far more radical.

During a conversation hosted by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics with longtime Democratic strategist David Axelrod, the socialist brushed aside questions about a potential 2028 presidential run or a challenge to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“You know, it’s funny because in this op-ed that Jeff Bezos paid for in The Washington Post, there was this line that you even mentioned earlier, about, ‘Well, as a potential 2028 contender, X, Y, Z.’ And in the context of that, it was very clear that this was a veiled threat, right?”

“This was the elite saying, ‘If you want this job, you just stepped out of line. And we want you to know where the real power is. And it’s in the modern-day barons who own the Post and own the algorithms, and we’re gonna — we’ll make an example out of you,’” Ocasio-Cortez said.

The far-left representative continued, “And what’s funny about that is that they assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat.”

“My ambition is way bigger than that,” she said. “My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials, come and go, but single-payer healthcare is forever. A living wage is forever. Workers’ rights are forever. Women’s rights — all of that.”

Ocasio-Cortez ranted, “And so, anyways, a finer point to your question is that, when you aren’t attached, right? When you haven’t been, like, fantasizing about being this or that since the time you were seven years old, um, it is tremendously liberating, because I get to wake up every day and say, ‘How am I gonna meet the moment?’”

Keep reading

Don Lemon Teases His Presidential Run Depends on God, Who He Insists is Female: ‘If She Gives Me a Sign’

Former CNN anchor and independent journalist Don Lemon’s time away from network television has exacerbated his own delusions: he could not manage a news show for CNN but now believes becoming president is possible.

Before doing that, though, he would need a sign from his god who is apparently a woman.

Lemon made an appearance on “Pod Save America” alongside host Alex Wagner where he, unsurprisingly, couldn’t help but talk about President Donald Trump, leading Lemon to opine about his own presidential aspirations.

“Do I ever think about it, yes. Could it happen?” Lemon asked. “Yeah, it could happen. If the opportunity presented itself.”

“I know people are going to think I’m crazy, this is going to be the headline, people are going to laugh about it, I think I could be president of the United States. I could definitely run this country better than Donald Trump.”

The shock of no one, Lemon, claims to be an independent, and says he would run as a Democrat.

“Am I at that point now? No, and I know people are going to say, ‘Don Lemon is crazy’ but yeah look, why can’t I think about running for office,” Lemon said.

Keep reading

CNN Alum Drops Blunt Warning on Harris 2028 Run: ‘Very Bad’ News for Democrats

CNN alumnus Chris Cillizza said former Vice President Kamala Harris is likely mounting another White House run, and he explained how that would be ‘very bad’ news for Democrats.

Late last week on his podcast, “So What,” Cillizza warned about the potential damage Harris could do to the Democratic Party if she runs for president again.

“I think this is a bad thing for the Democratic Party that she appears to be moving closer to running,” he proclaimed. “I think that she, based on the polling, would start the race as the front-runner.”

He added, “Notice I focused on ‘start the race as the front-runner.’”

“But I think that the Harris people, or Harris herself, will learn the wrong lesson from that — or has already learned the wrong lesson from that,” Cillizza continued. “And by that I mean this: She will look at that and say, ‘I’m in first place. Why wouldn’t I run? It’s my nomination to lose.’”

His comments came after CNN reported that Harris is scheduled to appear at Democratic events in four southern states next month.

The former vice president’s publicity tour for her book “107 Days” received negative press after it was discovered that she was using California Highway Patrol officers to serve as her personal security.

California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, a Republican, said if elected, he would rescind the protection, which he called a “corrupt freebie.”

About one week later, Harris announced she was cancelling several stops on the tour, according to KCRA-TV.

“In the one general election she ran on the national level, she lost to Donald Trump, a deeply flawed candidate,” Cillizza explained. “So number one, I just don’t think, in … candidate skills, when it comes to being able to reach across the aisle and get voters who are not already hard-core Democrats, I don’t think she has a great record of doing that.”

Cillizza also concluded that Harris would steal attention from other potential Democratic nominees if she ran again, and that she would make former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical decline a main talking point of the election.

Keep reading

Dems Hope To Hide Anti-American Policies Behind ‘Straight, White, Christian Man’ 2028 Nominee

A hilarious article in Axios over the weekend re-upped one of my favorite self-perpetuating problems in the Democrat Party — the party’s refusal to do anything but change its destructive, unpopular policy positions.

“Some top Democrats,” read the piece by Holly Otterbein and Alex Thompson, “are quietly debating a fraught question: whether the party’s best bet for winning back the presidency in 2028 is to nominate a man — perhaps a straight, white, Christian man.”

Democrats had their rears smacked and handed to them red hot in 2024, in large part because they wouldn’t accept that voters aren’t as preoccupied with race and sex as they are. It’s how they permanently screwed themselves with Kamala Harris, first as vice president and then inevitably as the party’s replacement nominee.

To her credit, at least Kamala, with a herculean assist from the dying news media, pretended not to support all the things she and the rest of the party in fact did support up until the last second. Namely, importing every destitute foreigner who made it to the southern border, allowing crime to run rampant (so long as the perpetrators were of a particular demographic), and crushing the middle class by hooking as many people as possible on welfare.

If Kamala hadn’t had a record as, you know, vice president for the previous three-plus years, she might have had a shot. But a policy reversal isn’t the lesson Democrats appear to have taken from that loss. Instead, they have settled on a new strategy that involves going on podcasts, publicly cursing a lot, and — wait for it — hunting down a nominee who might fit the profile of the very type of person the party has tried to destroy. The white, straight, Christian male.

They’re no longer considering a policy shift, it seems.

Keep reading

REPORT: Democrats Running for President in 2028 Are Emphasizing Their ‘Childhood Traumas’

This is just pathetic.

Some of the Democrats who are planning to run for president in 2028 are apparently hyping up their childhood traumas. It’s a mad dash for who can be the biggest victim.

This is part of a larger trend on the left to turn the entire country into a giant college campus, with safe spaces, trigger warnings, and microaggressions where everyone is a victim, everyone is special, and everyone is perpetually offended.

The report comes from Axios:

Dems eyeing White House lean into their childhood traumas

Some potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates are introducing themselves to voters in a striking way: by documenting their childhood resentments, family chaos and fights with their parents.

Why it matters: Many presidential hopefuls carry painful memories from complicated childhoods. But few have discussed them as openly as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

Their frankness about their formative years and family dynamics is a way to shape their public stories before journalists do. It’s also a sign of shifting taboos and a growing desire for candidates to appear relatable to voters.

Driving the news: In preparing for potential 2028 campaigns, the governors have opened up about how their difficult relationships with their parents still shape them…

If you spend any time on Twitter/X, you may know that Gavin Newsom has suddenly started talking about having Dyslexia as a child. The article gets into that:

– In his new book, “Young Man in a Hurry,” Newsom recounts having dyslexia and how his mother, Tessa— who carried most of the burden of raising him and his sister — tried to console him over his struggles in school by saying: “It’s okay to be average, Gavin.”

– Newsom writes that although she meant to comfort him, he recalls no “crueler words.”

– He also says that after his parents’ divorce his father, Bill, was often absent, leaving him looking to give his father “reasons to be a bigger part” of his life.

The report is getting dragged, for obvious reasons.

Keep reading

DeSantis opens door on another presidential bid, ‘We’ll see’

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is opening the door to another presidential bid.  (R) said in an interview with Sean Hannity “we’ll see” about a future presidential bid.

“Will you run for president again?” he was asked by conservative news commentator and Fox News personality Sean Hanity, in a clip released Monday of an episode Tuesday of the “Hang Out with Sean Hannity,” podcast, according to the Miami Herald.

DeSantis, whose gubernatorial term ends next year, said, “We’ll see.”

The GOP governor lost badly in his party’s primary two years ago to eventual President Donald Trump. He only received 21% of the vote in the Iowa caucuses, then dropped out of the race before the primary in New Hampshire.

“In Iowa, the people that voted for Trump, if he wasn’t running, I would have gotten like 90% of those people,” DeSantis said. “They were conservative voters.”

Voters in Iowa “didn’t want the non-conservative,” DeSantis said. “They wanted me.”

“But the timing didn’t work out, obviously, for that. So, you just got to see what happens,” he added.

Keep reading

Is This the Scandal That Dooms Josh Shapiro’s Presidential Ambitions?

Josh Shapiro has spent years polishing his image, positioning himself as a potential presidential candidate. He hasn’t quite figured out that his party will never nominate a Jew for president, so you would think he’d still try to keep up appearances and pretend to be a decent human being before he starts his presidential campaign next year.

Instead, he’s making headlines for something extremely unflattering: a backyard land grab that truly destroys his statesman image and makes him out to be more like a corrupt governor abusing his position to get what he wants.

“Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s neighbors are suing the Democrat, accusing him of stealing a slice of their land to erect an eight-foot-high security fence around his private residence in an ‘outrageous abuse of power,’” reports the New York Post. “The neighbors, Jeremy and Simone Mock, are currently duking it out with the governor in court over a 2,900 square foot parcel of land located between their two homes in Abington, Montgomery County, court papers show.”

It gets worse. Shapiro is essentially claiming squatter’s rights on the land.

The Mocks alleged in a lawsuit filed last month that Shapiro and his wife, Lori, unlawfully seized the stretch of land after initial negotiations to buy it from them went up in flames.

Shapiro claimed in a countersuit that he owns the disputed land due, citing an “adverse possession” loophole that makes it his because he has maintained the sliver of property for decades.

The land-grab tit-for-tat kicked off last year when the Shapiros first sought to erect the huge fence and upgrade security following an arson attack on the governor’s official residence in Harrisburg while they were all sleeping inside on April 13.

“This is a case of squatters’ rights, which is the colloquial term for the legal doctrine known as adverse possession,” attorney Chad Cummings told Realtor.com. “Where a person continuously maintains possession of another’s property openly, visibly, and notoriously for a set period of time, which varies by state, the squatter can file a court action to ask the court to recognize the squatter—the ‘adverse possessor’—as the legal owner through a quiet title action.”

Think it can’t get worse? Well, it does.

Keep reading

REPORT: Far Left Democrats Really Want AOC to be Nominee for President in 2028

When it comes to the 2028 election, the far left has a fever and the only prescription is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is the one they really want to be the Democrat nominee for president.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. She has been basically campaigning for the job for months by going on tour with Senator Bernie Sanders at their ridiculous ‘Fight Oligarchy’ rallies. She is seen as the apparent heir to Bernie’s legacy.

This far left faction of the Democrat party is on the rise. They think that the election of Zohran Mamdani is a sign of where the country is going and that this is their moment.

Breitbart News reports:

Hard-left Democrats have reportedly been pushing for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to run for president in 2028.

A report from Axios indicates that those Democrats view the young socialist as a replacement for the candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Behind the scenes, allies of Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) said that she would have an opportunity to boost her national profile if she runs, potentially polling in the top five of candidates and raising well over $100 million in campaign funds.

“There’s a window of opportunity for a left-wing nominee that may not come again for a generation. Democratic-socialist and liberal victories in New York City and elsewhere — with potentially more this fall — have changed the political playing field,” noted Axios.

Even if her candidacy failed, supporters of Ocasio-Cortez said that she would likely highlight issues they care most about, like universal health care, adding that she could even use it to potentially run for U.S. Senator in New York after Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer retires or even challenge him in a primary.

“I think she’ll plan to run for both and end up a senator,” said one strategist.

This could end up causing some division in the Democrat party.

Keep reading

Newsom’s water plan —as empty as the Palisades reservoir

Gavin Newsom launched a new water policy this week that does almost nothing for water. Perhaps he thinks it will help his nascent presidential campaign.

Newsom’s biggest weakness as a presidential candidate is his record. He cannot point to any major achievements after two terms.

That’s the real drought his plan aims to address.

Newsom called his policy the “most ambitious water plan in California history.” If so, the obvious question is why he waited until the last months of his administration to launch it.

And the equally obvious answer is that he is focused on the 2028 presidential campaign, not on solving California’s chronic water problems.

His policy is even called “California Water Plan 2028.” Why 2028, two years after he leaves office? The question answers itself.

Of course, nothing that ambitious can be done in two years in California. Even massive water bonds take forever to spend.

It has taken all eight years of Newsom’s governorship for him to line up the approvals for the Sites Reservoir, the first major water storage project in half a century. 

Keep reading