Principals

Team Trump isn’t done drowning out his rivals in Iowa

THE NEWS

Donald Trump is sending a parade of MAGA celebrities to keep himself the main focus at the Iowa State Fair this week.

The efforts began on day one: Ahead of the former president’s trip, Kari Lake spent a few days on the ground stumping for Trump. Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt hit the ground running on Sunday, and a Trump campaign staffer told Semafor they also plan to bring in former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker, Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene throughout next week.

On Saturday, Trump’s campaign also left a parting gift that would ensure he remained top of mind for potential voters: Over $20,000 for food and drinks at two popular on-site restaurants. At one of the locations, wristbands for free drinks were still being used well into the night, and a screen advertised a “MAGA Meal Deal.”

Meanwhile, the campaign says it has 30 staffers working the fair from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., handing out vast quantities of branded swag and pressing pledge cards to potential Caucus goers.

The Trump team’s aggression has occasionally grated on the fair’s administrators and Governor Kim Reynolds’ “Iowa nice” motto. On Thursday, pro-Trump canvassers collecting signatures at the fair were temporarily booted from the grounds, prompting complaints from Trump’s campaign to Reynolds’ aides.

SHELBY AND DAVE’S VIEW

There are two ways to look at Trump’s state fair strategy.

On the one hand, his campaign recognizes that he’s leading in the polls, and feels entitled to skip most of the formal political events that other campaigns have had to slog through — even the 30-minute “FairSide Chats” organized by Gov. Reynolds.

On the other, the ground game at the event showed how Trump isn’t taking Iowa — where his polling lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is somewhat smaller than it is nationally — for granted. His two-hour appearance (which included stops at the popular Pork Tent, the Animal Learning Center, and the Steer n’ Stein) was clearly designed to suck away attention from opponents. It largely succeeded thanks to a heavy dose of trolling aimed at his top rival.

Trump arrived at the event with an entourage of Florida lawmakers well-known to conservative media. As DeSantis flipped burgers, Trump’s private plane strategically flew overhead, distracting fairgoers who turned to take photos and videos of the moment. A Trump aide also confirmed that the campaign was responsible for a smaller plane that flew above the fair throughout the day with a banner reading “Be Likable, Ron!”

By the time DeSantis wrapped up, a crowd of pro-Trump attendees had gathered, and chants of “we love Trump” broke out around him as he exited the building. And at the Steer n’ Stein, Trump let his endorsers do most of the talking, praising his record and dunking on his opponents.

“The other candidates came here — they had, like, six people!” Trump boasted.

The drop-in show, which brought out thousands of curious onlookers and supporters, fueled more Trump-focused questions to his rivals, reminding campaigns just how centered the Republican race is around the frontrunner.

“The media loves to talk about Trump,” Nikki Haley told reporters as she moved through the fair. “That is what they are talking about. Americans are not talking about Trump.”

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

Despite all the fanfare, we are seeing some evidence of what rival campaigns have been arguing for months: That there is significant interest in a Trump alternative. Chad Ferris, who came to hear Vivek Ramaswamy speak, said that he loved Trump but worried about how many enemies he’d made.

“I feel like, if he gets elected, we’ll go nowhere, because they’ll keep trying to pin him down,” said Ferris, 51. “Our country’s got to move forward.”

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☞ White House: The Inflation Reduction Act turns one this week! And while President Biden has some regrets about the bill’s name, top officials will mark the anniversary with trips to nearly a dozen states. (Lucky Secretary Pete will fly to Alaska). A new Financial Times analysis finds more than 80% of new clean energy and semiconductor tech investments are pouring into GOP congressional districts.

☞ Senate: Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii said on CNN there should be zero excuses for the warning sirens that failed to activate in response to the Maui wildfire that has now become the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.

☞ House: Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who leads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, threatened during a Fox interview to block future funding for Afghanistan until Congress receives assurances from the Biden administration that “it’s not going right into the hands of the Taliban.” The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction wrote in a new report that the Taliban has been diverting funding from U.S. assistance programs.

☞ Outside the Beltway: A growing bipartisan consensus in favor of nuclear power has stalled in Illinois, where Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, vetoed legislation that would have ended a moratorium on construction of new plants, citing concerns about nuclear waste disposal.

Trump could face indictment No. 4 this week

Donald Trump may rack up his fourth indictment as soon as this week, after prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia present a grand jury with their case on his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

Here are the key details heading in.

The Big Picture: Trump is one of several individuals who may face indictment and experts believe that the district attorney may pursue state RICO charges normally used for organized crime.

Possible charges: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been scrutinizing a fake electors scheme, Trump’s notorious call to Georgia’s secretary of state, harassment of election workers, and a January 2021 breach of voting systems in Coffee County that CNN reports prosecutors have linked to members of Trump’s legal team through texts and emails. A former Trump White House official told the House Jan. 6 committee that Rudy Giuliani hoped to gain access to voting machines to find evidence of fraud.

Witness to watch: Among those who will testify before the grand jury is former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, who confirmed his scheduled appearance on Tuesday.

Trump’s take: “The only Election Interference that took place in Fulton County, Georgia, was done by those that Rigged and Stole the Election, not by me, who simply complained that the Election was Rigged and Stolen,” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend.

— Morgan Chalfant

Punchbowl News: House Republicans are talking about demanding spending cuts to offset any supplemental spending on Ukraine or other priorities, after the White House introduced a $40 billion package last week that included aid to the country.

Playbook: Though it mostly stayed out of the news until his recent freeze up in front of reporters, the private chatter about Mitch McConnell’s age and health is getting louder among his GOP colleagues. One lawmaker talked to the Senate minority leader’s staff about possibly getting him hearing implants.

The Early 202: The White House is hoping to speed up the confirmation of Biden’s judicial picks after a slow down in the Senate this year. The White House lawyer in charge of nominations, Phil Brest, told the Washington Post he expects the Senate to meet or exceed the 234 judicial confirmations under the Trump presidency by the end of Biden’s first term.

Axios: The U.S., Japan, and South Korea may agree to set up a new “crisis hotline”  during their planned summit at Camp David this week.

Ron DeSantis might still have a chance, says the hot new D.C. take

Don’t call it a comeback narrative. But as Ron DeSantis flipped burgers in Iowa this weekend, political journalists began contemplating the idea that the Florida governor might still have a shot in the GOP primary.

Yes, he may be socially inept and a “messy campaigner,” the Washington Post’s Dan Balz wrote on Saturday, but that “doesn’t fully describe the balance sheet of candidate DeSantis.” Politico’s Playbook devoted a large chunk of its Sunday edition to laying out DeSantis’ team’s theory for victory. Meanwhile, Pod Save America’s Dan Pfeiffer offered that the people “who are positive Trump will be the nominee in 2024 are the same people who were positive Trump would NOT be the nominee in 2016. Therefore, it’s worth testing that assumption.”

Much of the argument comes down to Iowa, where reporters who saw him over the weekend found that he exceeded low Beltway expectations. DeSantis has been picking up important local endorsements in the state, including from popular talk show host Steve Deace. He also has a good relationship with Gov. Kim Reynolds — Balz calls her an “undeclared asset” — with whom Trump has built a bit of a feud. His campaign and Super PAC argue that they’ve built a capable ground game, and that DeSantis is on pace to do the “full Grassley” by visiting all 99 of Iowa’s counties.

It’s a long campaign and journalists need new storylines. Add that to DeSantis’ list of assets, too.

— Jordan Weissmann

Democrats are planning to once again bludgeon Republican candidates over Social Security as they look to navigate a tough round of Senate races in 2024.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has started laying the groundwork with a fact sheet, first seen by Semafor, highlighting the times that GOP politicians have suggested they’d be open to cutting the retirement program.

Number one on the list is Florida Sen. Rick Scott. No surprise there: During last year’s midterms, Democrats made hay of his plan to sunset all federal programs every five years, including entitlements. (He later edited the plan to exempt Medicare and Social Security). The DSCC dings Sam Brown, who is running for Senate in Nevada, for praising Scott’s plan, too. But it also hits potential candidates like Pennsylvania’s David McCormick and Wisconsin’s Eric Hovde, who’ve taken the more orthodox GOP position that Congress should leave benefits for older seniors while potentially paring them back for younger generations.

— Jordan Weissmann

Hunter Biden’s legal team is still hoping to avoid a trial, according to his lawyer Abbe Lowell, who appeared on CBS yesterday and suggested there might still be room for prosecutors and the president’s son to revive the plea deal that collapsed in court. That possibility seemed deeply unlikely after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced late last week that U.S. Attorney David Weiss was being given special counsel status in the five-year investigation. Prosecutors wrote in a court filing that plea talks were at an “impasse” and that “a trial is therefore in order.”

Lowell dismissed the possibility that Weiss might pursue other allegations beyond the tax and gun charges addressed by the now-defunct plea deal, which fell apart after it became clear the two sides disagreed on how much immunity it would provide Biden from future charges. “Everything else had been thoroughly looked at,” Lowell told CBS. “If the now-special counsel decides not to go by the deal, then it will mean that he or they decided that something other than the facts and the law are coming into play.”

— Morgan Chalfant

Cory Mills is a Republican congressman from Florida. He is in his first term representing Florida’s 7th congressional district.

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

WHAT THE LEFT ISN’T READING: Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla. filed four articles of impeachment against President Biden related to Hunter Biden’s business dealings and drug use.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas screamed profanities at local law enforcement officials before being briefly detained outside a rodeo last month when he was trying to help a person suffering a seizure, according to a new incident report that also said he later threatened the local sheriff’s job.

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• The State Department is probing an American security company founded by an ex-CIA operative over its work for Qatar, including the alleged hacking of FIFA officials.