Crooked Media - What A Day: Here today, Ron tomorrow

Today we fly our high-heeled boots at half-mast for Ron DeSantis.
 

• Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) ran an absolute Hindenburg of a presidential campaign for nine excruciating months, and now it’s over. Yes, on Sunday DeSantis gave his swan song (Ron song?) just before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary and endorsed the guy he spent the better part of the last year dragging to hell: disgraced former president Donald Trump. In the speech bidding his disastrous campaign farewell, DeSantis misquoted Winston Churchill, in what was actually a quotation from a depression-era Budweiser ad. Quite simply, no one is doing it like him. Even Jeb Bush (Jeb!) made it past the first nominating contest. It feels like just yesterday that Ron calamitously announced his campaign on Twitter Spaces, which experienced so many glitches it barely worked (a harbinger of his road to come). The worst campaign launch of all-time? The worst GOP campaign since…ever? Very possibly!
   

• DeSantis and his PAC, Never Back Down, (lol) spent a whopping $53 million to win just over 23,000 votes in Iowa. Incredible. “Entrepreneur” Vivek Ramaswamy spent $15 million of his own money just to win 8,449 votes before dropping out. The only more embarrassing presidential campaign we can think of in terms of negative return on investment is former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 Democratic campaign sinkhole, in which he spent one billion dollars of his own money to ultimately win four delegates. I never want to be lectured about “fiscal responsibility” by any of these jagweeds ever again. 
   

• Alright, enough about ole’ pudding fingers. The winnowing of the GOP field has left just Trump and his former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. The exit of DeSantis clears the way for all of the never-Trump Republican voters to coalesce around Haley—the only problem is, there aren’t that many of them. According to the latest CNN/University of New Hampshire polls, Trump’s lead over Haley in the Granite State has only widened in recent days. After Tuesday, the two will head on to Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where Trump looks poised to embarrass her on her own turf. It’s true that nearly one-third of Iowa caucus-goers told pollsters that they thought Trump would not be “fit” for the White House if he is convicted of a crime, but any such polls should be taken with a hefty grain of salt.

It’s abundantly clear that Trump is the likely nominee, so what does a potential 2020 rematch mean for President Biden?
 

• President Biden unfortunately has every reason to be fearful of a rematch with Trump. The latest polls have shown Trump beating Biden on a hypothetical 2024 ballot, with that lead growing with the presence of third-party candidates like antivax guy with too much generational wealth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Independent Dr. Cornel West, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein. The latter point reinforces the ideas of many who say that the country “needs another choice,” but Republican Party primary voters, with their overwhelming support of Trump, seem to disagree. 
   

• Michigan Democrats are sounding the alarm, as recent polls have shown Biden losing to Trump by nearly double-digits in the all-important swing state. The Biden campaign is working to bolster the president’s support there, focusing on the administration’s unprecedented support for organized labor, an appeal to the state’s 300,000 auto workers. Biden will address the United Auto Workers at the union’s political conference in Washington in an effort to secure its pivotal endorsement. The Biden administration’s policy decisions throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict have alienated many young voters, as well as Arab-American voters, who make up a significant demographic in Michigan. Pennsylvania is the only battleground state where Biden is showing a slight lead over Trump; polls from Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada all have Trump coming out on top. 
   

President Biden has a tall order to execute in the months ahead. He needs to convince young voters, Black voters, and the rest of the coalition that delivered the White House to him in 2020 that he’s fighting for them, and that he’s the octogenarian we can depend on for four more years. And those of us who want to see Biden get over the finish line a second time also have to do our part to get him there. 

In today's episode of our digital series Political Experts React, Dan Pfeiffer and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki go through a roundup of the best and worst ads from the 2024 Republican Primary. They discuss the last-ditch-efforts of a dying DeSantis campaign, Nikki’s ‘’Haley Mary’ strategy and a Never-Trump ad that’s been airing during town hall events on FoxNews. This episode of Political Experts React just  dropped, check it out only on the Pod Save America YouTube channel!

The United States called for Israel to protect innocent people in hospitals on Monday, as the country’s forces stormed the Al-Khair hospital, according to Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qidra. Israel Defense Forces troops moved into the Al-Mawasi district in Southern Gaza near the Mediterranean coast, where residents said that the bombardment from air, land, and sea was the most intense the region has seen since the war began in October. The IDF said it was moving its campaign further “to the west” of the city of Khan Younis in Southern Gaza and reiterated allegations that Hamas “embeds itself in the civilian population” and “sites such as hospitals and schools.” But it did not respond to NBC News about whether its forces were active around the Al-Khair hospital. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that Israel has a right to defend itself, but added that the U.S. “expect[s] them to do so in accordance with international law and protect innocent people in hospitals, medical staff, and patients as well, as much as possible.” 

In what could amount to a major breakthrough in the conflict, Israel has reportedly presented Hamas with a proposal (through Qatari and Egyptian mediators) for a two-month ceasefire in exchange for the release of all remaining hostages in Hamas custody, according to two Israeli officials who spoke to Axios. Of the 220 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7, more than 130 are still being held in captivity. John Kirby told reporters on Monday that the White House supports a pause in fighting that would both enable the release of hostages and allow more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza. CNN reported that two officials familiar with the negotiations suggested that Hamas senior leaders could leave Gaza as part of the agreement. While the details have yet to be finalized or made public, it’s clear that pressure is mounting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet to bring the hostages home. International sentiment towards Israel has grown more critical—even among its allies—since October, as the country’s invasion of Gaza has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Supreme Court decided on Monday that federal border patrol agents can remove razor wire installed by Texas officials along the southern border until the legality of those barriers is resolved, siding with the Biden administration for now. 

The White House announced new steps to expand access to contraception, abortion medication, and emergency abortions at hospitals in red states on Monday, the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision. 

X (Twitter) CEO and all-around terrible guy Elon Musk visited Auschwitz after backlash for promoting an antisemitic post on his social media platform and calling it “the actual truth.”

A growing number of House Republicans are looking to boot GOP Speaker Mike Johnson, just months after they booted Kevin McCarthy. 

New Hampshire authorities are investigating fake robocalls that used an artificially-created replica of President Biden’s voice to tell Democrats to stay home from the polls on Tuesday.

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New York Uber and Lyft drivers will soon be able to apply for settlement funds from the historic lawsuit brought by Attorney General Letitia James (D-NY) in which the two companies agreed to pay $328 million for “not properly paying” its drivers (read: wage theft). 

The Louisiana state legislature approved a new congressional map on Friday that would create a second congressional district of majority-black voters in the state (after a federal court ordered them to do so, but who’s counting). 

Economists are increasingly confident that the United States will avoid a recession. Bidenomics at work! 

A federal judge blocked Republican efforts in North Carolina to add more restrictions to same-day voter registration.