Category DeSantis ‘Never Back Down’ PAC

Jul 19 2023

An Oddly Demure Jake Tapper Interviews Ron DeSantis


Posted originally on the CTH on July 19, 2023 | Sundance 

For some apparently unknown reason, CNN’s Jake Tapper suddenly dropped his combative nature that he carries toward Republicans and shifted to an extremely demure disposition, as he interviews Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.   This is the softest softball interview I have ever seen Jake Tapper deliver; and that history goes all the way back to his ABC days as a White House correspondent.

It’s almost as if there’s an agenda here in the background for Jake Tapper.  Remember, this is the guy who led the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy for over two years with his friends Carl Bernstein, Jim Sciutto and Manu Raju, and the same Jake Tapper who affirmed that everything in the Chris Steele dossier was factually accurate.

Watching Jake Tapper softly interview Ron DeSantis with literally zero pushback, not a single challenge to a single response from DeSantis, is really odd – particularly on the heels of Tapper’s background allies advancing another round of indictments against President Trump.  It’s almost as if this is a coordinated set up on behalf of the DC system to the benefit of Ron DeSantis, who is supported by the multinational corporations who sponsor the CNN agenda.  Go figure.  WATCH: 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RHKmWzd23Hw%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Jake Tapper seems almost intellectually resigned, seemingly disinterested, in having to play this role.  Watch him closely… you can almost see Tapper saying, “yada, yada, yada… can we just get this over with.”  lol  Too conspicuous.

Trump gets a grand jury letter from the DOJ…. DeSantis gets a softball interview with Jake Tapper… Congress has a Hunter Biden whistleblower hearing…. then comes a Trump indictment.  Gee, it’s almost like that one time when Mar-a-Lago was raided, and oddly DeSantis was scheduled for bunker time…. right before the national campaign launch. 👀

At this point, it’s not just the strings we can see…. the hands moving above the strings are visible.

Jul 19 2023

Ron DeSantis Blames President Trump for J6 Insurrection, Pledges to Stop Prosecuting Corrupt Democrats and Return to Political Civility


Posted originally on the CTH on July 18, 2023 | Sundance 

Speaking in South Carolina today, presidential candidate Ron DeSantis blamed President Trump for the events of January 6, 2021, in Washington DC saying, “I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while things were going on. Should he have come out more forcefully? Of course.”  However, DeSantis affirmed he does not believe Trump’s transgressions amounted to criminal conduct.  “But to try to criminalize that, that’s a different issue entirely,” the Florida governor noted.

Governor DeSantis then tacked to his preferred position that politicians should not be criminally targeted and promised if he was elected, he would do a more reach-across-the-decorum, saying “I think that we want to be in a situation where you don’t have one side just constantly trying to put the other side in jail.”

DeSantis pledging to return civility to the Dept of Justice comes on the same day the DOJ is about to deploy yet another indictment against the political opposition of the current administration.  I’m not sure the civility DeSantis requires would be afforded by the institutions DeSantis supports.  WATCH:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_oZDeXKelYc%3Ffeature%3Doembed

(New York Post – Rupert Murdoch) – […] DeSantis spoke hours after Trump disclosed, he is a target of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the events surrounding the ransacking of the Capitol.

Smith has been spearheading the DOJ’s two investigations involving Trump: one into the Capitol riot and the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, and the other into sensitive national security material kept at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Jul 18 2023

DeSantis Next Move – Here Comes the Big Hug


Posted originally on the CTH on July 18, 2023 | Sundance 

What comes next in the management of Ron DeSantis is predictable.  I know these guys.  This is what I call the Alex Castellanos shift [use site search].

After failure to launch on the original strategy, team DeSantis organized a crisis intervention last Sunday.  What comes next is entirely predictable.  The people managing Ron DeSantis will now shift to the Alex Castellanos approach.  Christine Pushaw and her bitter hate approach will be distanced, and she’s told to get quiet.  The tone of the influencers will be told to soften immediately and follow the candidate.

Here comes the BIG HUG!

The managers will likely use the pre-planned CNN interview with Jake Tapper as the launch vehicle to shift Ron DeSantis into the mode where he praises Donald Trump (the hug).  You might even hear phrases like “without him, I wouldn’t be governor,” and “look, what they did to President Trump is unfair and unwarranted.”

The shift will be strategic and intended to portray a softer, more deliberate and professionally demure Ron DeSantis sympathetically. Neutering the confliction between himself and the campaign target, Donald Trump.  DeSantis will be trained to speak warmly, perhaps even effusively about President Trump, while reinforcing his agreement and opposition to the unfair DC attacks against the former President and frontrunner.

DeSantis will affirm the wrongful nature of the current DOJ targeting.  Then, after affirming the wrongful nature of the Deep State effort to attack Trump, DeSantis will then tack to a position of saying ‘but here’s the deal.’  ‘While Trump was unfairly attacked by all of the DC mechanisms that are corrupt and wrong, and there were dozens of examples of that hatred we could rightly discuss, I’m the guy who can hold them accountable and target the enemies who attacked him.’

In this approach Ron DeSantis positions himself as the professional, strategic ‘white knight‘, who will combat the deep state machinery and deliver retribution because he is not emotionally attached to it.  He’s the deep strategist who will defeat the Deep State with smarter maneuvers, less words, a sharper approach and better qualified people.

Factually, if he ever wanted a chance, this is how the DeSantis campaign should have started. However, their authentic campaign approach – the approach they believe in – didn’t work.  Now the Brutus approach as outlined by Alex Castellanos comes out, “snuggle up real close and wait to shiv him in the ribs.”

Watch, you’ll see it.

An approach that gently shifts away from antagonism and combat into an approach that contains praise, even effusive praise, as a strategic move.

It won’t be subtle, it will be obvious to those looking for it, but it will be different.  The problem they have is the same problem with the original launch, the shift is fake, inauthentic and transparently purposeful.

Watch and you will see the Big Hug play roll out….

…. But keep in mind, it’s all an act!

Jul 18 2023

Desperate DeSantis Team Uses Fake AI Generated Voice of President Trump in Iowa Media Campaign


Posted originally on the CTH on July 17, 2023 | Sundance 

Former Ted Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe is guy who told the Iowa caucus team in 2016 to tell the voters that Dr. Ben Carson dropped out of the race.  So it doesn’t come as a surprise to see Jeff Roe now working for Ron DeSantis and deploying his bag of dirty campaign tricks.

The DeSantis team is planning to spend at least $1 million on a TV ad blitz using a fake voice of Donald Trump intended to trick Iowa voters.  The desperate effort will backfire, as all desperate false efforts always do.  If this is the approach of Team DeSantis, they will likely lose more voters than they could hope to gain.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LKQiTpiPN7I%3Ffeature%3Doembed

(POLITICO) – […] A person familiar with the ad confirmed Trump’s voice was AI generated. Its content appears to be based off of a post that Trump made on his social media site Truth Social last week. The person said it will run statewide in Iowa tomorrow and that the ad buy was at least $1 million — a massive sum though one doable for the well-heeled super PAC.

“The blatant use of AI to fabricate President Trump’s voice is a desperate attempt by Always Back Down and Jeff Roe to deceive the American public because they know DeSanctimonious’ campaign is on life support,” said Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita, referring to a top official with the pro-DeSantis super PAC. “After losing big donors and slashing their staff, they have now outsourced their work to AI just like they would like to outsource American jobs to China.” (link)

I have said from the outset, long before anyone wanted to accept that Ron DeSantis was being managed toward this 2024 effort, that everything created by the team around him is fake, astroturf and manipulated.  This ad is just another example.

Ron DeSantis cannot win the GOP nomination without an external intervention to change the dynamic.  If you start your review of sequence from that acceptance point, then you realize those who support Ron DeSantis will need to support the external intervention.  In this instance, a corrupt and weaponized leftist U.S. Dept of Justice.

The DeSantis team, just like the Ted Cruz team that preceded him, are more anti-Trump and anti-nationalism than they are anti-corruption in government.

If it takes a corrupt and weaponized United States government to achieve their objective of a DeSantis nomination, then the corrupt and weaponized government is something they must accept.   Hence, the baseline for my snarky prediction, “Hey, the bugs ain’t so bad.”

Again, this is not a grand exercise in political insight, it is simply following the sequence of necessary events to its most logical conclusion.

Ron DeSantis supporters will support Joe Biden in order to eliminate the problem of Donald Trump.  However, the number of Republican voters who are willing to accept that conflicting outlook is far fewer than the number of ideologues within the GOPe willing to use it.

What I have just described, in that dynamic of diminished support, is exactly why Team DeSantis continues to shed supporters amid the ranks of voters.

Team DeSantis, the billionaires, the RGA, RNC and the entire coalition of ideological influencers, may be willing to eat the bugs – but the overwhelming majority of the voters will not; nor will they accept a transparently weaponized Dept of Justice as an external force against the will of We The People.

If you understand this dynamic, I mean really understand this dynamic, it becomes fun to combat the influence group being paid by the hundreds of millions in Sea Island funding.

In order to achieve their objective, the DeSantis supporters are forced to align with the corrupt system they pretend to despise.  They are forced to deny that elections are manipulated; they are forced to deny the targeting of Trump is an inflection point that destroys our nation; they are forced to deny their association with the same corrupt and manipulated systems they depend on to achieve their objective.   Pushing those supporters into the painful sunlight of their hypocrisy is not difficult.

Team meatball has to win in Iowa; even their own internal campaign team admit that without an Iowa victory the campaign just evaporates.  Their desperation with the ad is pathetic, just like the campaign that sits behind it.

Jul 17 2023

Bad Lipreading on the DeSantis Campaign Trail


Posted originally on the CTH on July 16, 2023 | Sundance 

These guys make some funny videos.  I’m not sure if this beats the “bogels on the glotch” one they did about Ted Cruz, but it’s funny all the same.  Bad lip reading is why they created the internet.  We need more laughter.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Q2opM-EzI_M%3Ffeature%3Doembed

.

Jul 16 2023

DeSantis Fires a Dozen Staffers as Campaign Payroll Burn Rate Nears 30%, Meanwhile Two-Thirds of All Campaign Funds Come from Big Donors, 15% from Small Donors


Posted originally on the CTH on July 15, 2023 | Sundance 

There is a lot of granular dissection of the DeSantis campaign taking place as the music stops and the staff clamor for a chair.

Keep in mind, Donald Trump released his campaign fundraising details showing over a million small donors helped raise $35 million with an average contribution of $34.20.  Small donors, that’s millions of middle class and working class MAGA folks, are the fuel for President Trump’s campaign.

According to the latest FEC filing [DATA HERE] the DeSantis campaign team took in $20.1 million, but burned through $7.9 million in just six weeks.  This presents a major problem for the campaign, because over two-thirds of those contributions were from maxed-out donors who cannot contribute again.  Only 15% of DeSantis campaign fundraising came from small donors.

[DATA HERE]

As NBC notes, “the numbers suggest, for the first time, that solvency could be a threat to DeSantis’ campaign, which has touted its fundraising ability as a key measure of viability.”  The big problem for Ron DeSantis is his reliance on big donors.

(NBC) – […] more than two-thirds of DeSantis’ money — nearly $14 million — came from donors who gave the legal maximum and cannot donate again, NBC’s analysis shows. Some of those donors gave the $3,300 limit for both the primary and general elections, boosting DeSantis’ totals with cash that can’t be used to try to defeat Trump.

DeSantis finished June with more than $12.2 million in the bank, but his filing indicates that $3 million of that can only be used in the general election. Trump’s campaign ended the quarter with $22.5 million on hand. At the same time, DeSantis spent about 40 percent of what he raised, in part by paying salaries to 92 people (before the staff firings). (article here)

The issue of relying on billionaires, rich people, corporations and Wall Street was always an Achilles heel for DeSantis. Once those donors have contributed the maximum amount, either individually or through bundling their friends to support him, that’s it.

Every campaign needs a wide and deep donor group from the voters in order to tap them intermittently for assistance as the campaign continues. DeSantis just doesn’t have that with only 15% of his total raised coming from small donors. That makes the burn rate a major problem, and with the scale of payroll assembled, he needs to cut expenses after less than two months of campaigning. Casey will not be happy.

(NBC) – Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has fired roughly a dozen staffers — and more are expected in the coming weeks as he shakes up his big-money political operations after less than two months on the campaign trail.

Those who were let go were described to NBC News by a source familiar as mid-level staffers across several departments whose departures were related to cutting costs. The exits come after the departures of David Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, veterans of DeSantis’ political orbit, which were first reported by Politico.

Sources involved with the DeSantis campaign say there is an internal assessment among some that they hired too many staffers too early, and despite bringing in $20 million during its first six weeks, it was becoming clear their costs needed to be brought down.

[…] DeSantis’ campaign had 92 people listed as being on the payroll for at least some period of time during its first fundraising period, according to campaign finance reports filed Saturday with the Federal Election Commission. It is by far the most of any Republican presidential candidate, and it has left his campaign with huge payroll expenses and, the new filings show, fewer resources than originally thought. (read more)

Team DeSantis is having a crisis and coping party this weekend in Tallahassee, where they will address the issues of greatest concern to the billionaires.  However, absent a structural change in the candidate, the team, the outlook and the entire purpose of their assembly – nothing will work.

As noted by those connected to the campaign, “They think DeSantis’ inner circle underestimated just how hard — and expensive — it would be to break the grip on the Republican base held by Trump, who has a commanding lead and is seen as the overwhelming frontrunner. Even in Florida, a state that re-elected DeSantis by nearly 20 percentage-points just seven months ago, Trump now has his own 20-point lead on DeSantis, according to a Florida Atlantic University poll released last week.”

I said last year not to worry about DeSantis too much, because the more people would be exposed to him the less likely his campaign would succeed.  This was not snark on my part, this is just the reality that is Ron DeSantis.  The reason why the influencers recruited by Christina Pushaw are so abrasive, sanctimonious, condescending, annoying and detrimental to his campaign, is because his influencers are just like him.  Pushaw factually enlisted the help of people who have the same personality as Ron DeSantis – which is to say they are a miserable unlikable bunch.

There are not enough uppity jerks in the base of the Republican Party, people who look down on others while taking selfies of their lunches, to overwhelm the ordinary base of regular folks who comprise the MAGA community.  DeSantis polls well with a very narrow segment of rude, affluent people, and there just are not enough of them.

The issues for the DeSantis campaign are structural and embedded in the DNA of the campaign participants.  This is not a fixable flaw.  I knew this last year when I was watching the team assemble; these are the same GOPe types that form the core of the never-trumpets.  Just a miserable bunch of out-of-touch political types.

The Sea Island Super PAC (Never Back Down) has money, around $200 million, but the campaign itself is on life-support after only a few months.  Even with the super pac buying off everyone they can, they don’t end up changing the dynamic of the voting base.

You might say I have been a little hard on DeSantis, and if he just stayed as governor all would be ok.  Unfortunately, that’s not accurate or possible.  Ron DeSantis could not avoid running for 2024 because this 2024 race was the entire reason he was put into the 2018 Florida Governor’s contest to begin with.  Once you realize DeSantis is a long-planned operation, going back to Trump’s 2018 mid-term, then you realize why he needs to be removed.

Jul 15 2023

Tucker Carlson Interviews High Energy Ron DeSantis


Posted originally on the CTH on July 15, 2023 | Sundance

From the interview it is clear that Ron DeSantis handlers have spent a considerable amount of time in intensive training on scripted talking points. Additionally, based on what is visible in the body language of DeSantis he’s juiced.

Watch how DeSantis is fidgeting with the microphone when Tucker is talking. Watch how DeSantis takes a drink of water. Look at the exaggerated mannerisms that are highlighted by a seemingly high-energy state.

Also notice DeSantis never answers a question, but sticks to rehearsed points. Not a single question is answered, despite Carlson asking specifics on Ukraine three times. WATCH:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tl5RFJC9nI4%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Jul 14 2023

Murdoch Outlet – Struggling DeSantis Discounts Admission Price for Rich People to Meet Him in Hamptons


Posted originally on the CTH on July 13, 2023 | Sundance 

I don’t know what’s funnier, that Team DeSantis is now providing discounts for people to meet him, or that Rupert Murdoch is the one telling everybody.

Next up, coupons.

However, I qualify this article sharing by saying the Big Club doesn’t put $250+ million into a political construct and give up this easily.  Until Casey DeSantis publicly renounces her quest for a bigger tiara, Super PAC operators Ken Cuccinelli and Jeff Roe will never concede.  Reference Cindy McCain in Arizona for comparable context.

[NEW YORK POST] – When it comes to campaign fundraisers, Ron DeSantis has been relegated to the “discount section” as his chances of winning the White House continue to fade, sources told On The Money.

The cost to attend the Florida governor’s July 20 fundraiser in the Hamptons has dropped to $3,300 per person — less than three weeks after the Republican hopeful on June 29 charged $6,600 a plate at the Yale Club in Manhattan, according to invitations reviewed by On The Money.

“DeSantis is now in the discount section,” one source close to the campaign told On The Money.

“He seems to have lowered the entry fee to meet him, which is often a sign that he has already milked most of the ‘big money’ from New York.” (read more)

Jul 14 2023

Rabbit Faced Baby Found in Iowa, Buck Toothed Mom Chewed Carrots While Pregnant


Posted originally on the CTH on July 13, 2023 | Sundance 

Some things, not all, but some, might seem a little oddly presented as Team CTH tests the new AI reconnaissance Spiders recently launched by the surveillance mothership.

In the background, the latest CTH Pancake recipe is being absorbed for the seismic shift it represents.

Potentially, I may be a pro-bono plaintiff in a process to gain insightful discovery. We have long said that if you follow either side of the illusion of choice you end up arriving at the same corporate destination. The spiders may have inadvertently paved the path for sunlight upon the Vanguard/Blackrock launch process. Stay tuned.

In related matters, the billionaires who fund both sides of the two private corporations known as the DNC and RNC are nervous about underwhelming results for one of their preferred options.

CNBC – […] Despite those big fundraising numbers and his entry into the race on a wave of hype, DeSantis is lagging well behind frontrunner Donald Trump in polls. The Murdoch family, led by conservative Fox Corp. and News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch, reportedly is souring on DeSantis. And as concerns for DeSantis mount across the board, several donors have told fundraisers about their worries, according to people familiar with the matter.

Some donors are worried the polls indicate DeSantis has to climb a potentially insurmountable hill to overtake Trump, these people said. They’re also worried that Trump has a huge lead over DeSantis when it comes to Republican congressional endorsements. DeSantis represented Florida in the House before he won the governor’s office.

Many of the people declined to be identified in this story in order to speak freely about private conversations.

One megadonor, Ken Griffin, “continues to assess the field,” according to a spokesperson for the billionaire Citadel CEO, referring to the GOP primary lineup. Former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina are among the other contenders. (read more)

I hope you guys have had the opportunity to fully absorb the ramifications of Google (Vanguard, Blackrock, Page et al) supporting Ron DeSantis.

To say this is a remarkable dose of sunlight upon a little-known process we have discussed for two decades is an understatement. I could have assembled data for another decade and never gained such a succinct point of evidence as they inadvertently dropped in our lap.

Think about the defining violation terms “harmful” or “derogatory” in their fulsome context when applied to the world of political candidates.

If the spiders were given instructions to locate “harmful” or “derogatory” or “dangerous” content that was describing political candidates or politicians, think about the return results they would encounter around Donald Trump, or even RdS as described in Mother Jones, Politico, or any number of news publications. Arguably, a rather large percentage of all left-leaning media presentations would fall under that review. However, it didn’t… so what’s up?

What’s up… is the ah-ha moment when you realize the spider AI was crawling for a very specific type of content and context that would then be considered harmful, derogatory and/or dangerous to those who launched the AI search.

A specific type of enhanced AI capability now hunting content and context that would exclusively identify one type of presentation – essentially, sunlight upon the intents and motives of those who present the illusion of choice.

The newly enhanced spiders were crawling to see where outlines and discussion were taking place that would be averse to the interests of Blackrock, Vanguard, Page and the board of control officers.

The outcome of that process brings our understanding forward into the context of timing. LOOK:

[Read the Thread Here]

Can you see the connection now?

It is not accidental an enhanced AI spider crawl, containing new abilities to decipher paragraphs and context as part of the search parameter, a crawl that identified results for the mothership that then leads to demands for content removal,  just happened to launch shortly after the entire Twitter archive was being crawled and scraped for contextual AI application.

Keep watching how this unfolds.

There are trillions at stake.

They might have accidentally triggered the wrong misfit tripwire.

Jul 11 2023

DC Report – GOP Consultants Expect DeSantis Super PAC to Retool and Relaunch Momentarily


Posted originally on the CTH on July 10, 2023 | Sundance 

Against some recent data, there is a potential restructuring that is worthy of discussion. The epic failures of the DeSantis campaign and Never Back Down SuperPAC are well documented.

In essence, everything has backfired because the origin of almost everything was/is built upon a fraudulent premise. From the scheming and conniving going all the way back to the original 2018 campaign, to the proactive recruitment of the exact wrong influencers 18 months prior to the official launch, to the enlistment of the Cruz crew, to the covert national campaign under the faked auspices of a book tour, everything paid for by the Sea Island group has been a hot mess.

Now the clock is ticking faster.  Ken Cuccinelli and Jeff Roe are under pressure.  Javier Manjarres, a solid insider in Florida media, shares today that Pushaw is getting the loyal but firm campaign stiff arm:

The DC chattering class then release an article talking about Youngkin or Kemp as alternatives to DeSantis:

[…] A Republican strategist who keeps in regular contact with several Republican presidential campaigns predicted DeSantis will “retool” his super PAC in the next few weeks.  “They probably got another month to turn this thing around and if they don’t they’re going to have to bring someone and do a major retooling,” the source said. (read more)

They are not waiting a month; the retooling indications are already evident.

The DeSantis managers are going to retool in the next few days, a process I believe is already underway, and have about one more month before the donors stop writing checks and accept the futility of the principal effort.

Within the Sea Island group there has always been an insurance policy discussion in case DeSantis failed.  The DC chatter about Youngkin or Kemp is not arbitrary; there is some substance to the presentation as outlined by those connected to the professional Republican class.  The most likely person, however, is GA Republican Brian Kemp, not Youngkin.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is more deeply connected to the professional political GOPe group.  He’s a company man with company bona fides.  Kemp is also not a big fan of DeSantis and the ego-centric rise to stardom as promoted by a very specific subset of the overall Big Club group.  Governor Kemp views Governor DeSantis as a Republican politician who has not earned the merit claimed by his supporters, and instead was gifted a glide path by the Bush group simply for being a Floridian.

If the DeSantis handlers do not turn this around, and they will try – but won’t succeed – because their spiral is too severe now, be on the lookout for a much more likely Brian Kemp to enter.  Again, a Newsom -vs- Kemp contest is just as good an outcome as the original Newsom -vs- DeSantis goal.

Like Cruz in 2016, the DeSantis team will stay in, they will not exit until the money dries up, but for all intents and purposes they will be forced to shift objectives, and DeSantis will need to modify his approach to remain in a club position of future financial benefit.

Watch the Republican Governors Association for the first indications.  They are going to double down on DeSantis before they give up and shift.

The money behind the RNC is the same money behind the RGA.

Watch the RGA!