As if on cue, here comes another billionaire group by well-established political control agents in yet another multimillion effort to block President Trump.   This time it’s Koch and his Americans for Prosperity network.

The Koch groups are planning to spend $70 million in their effort to eliminate the support of Donald Trump in 2024.

However, what will be interesting will be to watch how the downstream media networks attack Trump in order to get a piece of the spending allotment.  That’s where knowing where the Koch money flows comes in handy.

First the article:

(New York Times) – The political network established by the conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch has raised more than $70 million for political races as it looks to help Republicans move past Donald J. Trump, according to an official with the group.

With some of this large sum to start, the network, Americans for Prosperity Action, plans to throw its weight into the G.O.P. presidential nominating contest for the first time in its nearly 20-year history. The network spent nearly $500 million supporting Republican candidates and conservative policies in the 2020 election cycle alone.

Two groups closely affiliated with Charles Koch contributed $50 million of the more than $70 million that has been raised. Mr. Koch is a major shareholder in Koch Industries, which contributed $25 million to Americans for Prosperity Action, according to a preliminary draft of Federal Election Commission filings. Another $25 million was donated by Stand Together, a nonprofit he founded.

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President Trump famously threatened Mexican President AMLO with 25 to 50% immediate border tariffs within a week if Mexico didn’t help secure the southern U.S. border. The result was 18,000 activated Mexican National Guards to enforce the “Remain in Mexico” policy, while the border wall was under construction.

The southern border crisis has created an opportunity for a desperate Ron DeSantis to skip the seven-minute-ab border security competition and go straight to the six-minute-ab pitch, whereby a President DeSantis will start shooting Mexicans who attempt to smuggle across the border.  Appearing in a heavily coordinated and scripted interview with Rupert Murdoch’s debate moderator, Martha MacCallum, DeSantis announced his “use of deadly force” policy just before traveling to the Yale Club in New York for fundraising.

A gleeful Martha MacCallum was more than willing to support the 6-minute-ab pitch, narrating an introduction of “the governor“, yes, she used that exact descriptive for the guy who is on the monitor.  The transparent construct of the interview was made even funnier by the desperate transparency of it.  WATCH:

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Ron DeSantis is heading to the Big Apple to reunite with his Yale alumni and accept a boost in capital for his ailing campaign.

The $6,600/plate appearance is the latest effort by Team DeSantis to connect to the ordinary working class voter he needs to try and regain footing after his effort has fallen short of the Sea Island billionaires’ expectations.

The Yale Club appearance tomorrow is more friendly terrain for the Florida governor, a return to those who are at the root of his political career.

(Via NBC) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is coming to New York for a private presidential campaign fundraiser that’s set to be hosted by at least four Wall Street executives, including one with past ties to a firm backed by liberal billionaire George Soros, a frequent target of DeSantis and other Republicans.

The event is scheduled to take place June 29 at the swanky Yale Club, according to a copy of an invitation seen by CNBC. It will be one of DeSantis’ first fundraisers in the Big Apple since he officially launched his campaign for president last month.

The hosts listed on the DeSantis invitation include Paul Ardire, a partner at GoldenTree Asset Management, along with Christian Michalik, Rob Michalik and Corwynne Carruthers, who are all leaders at Kinderhook Industries, a private equity firm with at least $5 billion in assets under management, according to data from PitchBook. GoldenTree has at least $50 billion in assets under management, PitchBook says. (read more)

Despite the combined efforts of Rupert Murdoch, Ken Griffin, Elon Musk, the Sea Island billionaires, hedge fund managers, Wall Street groups and a host of multinational corporations, recent polling shows the richest fundraiser in the GOP field has failed to gain traction with the lesser controllable voters.

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NBC is out with a new national poll {Article Here} – {Poll pdf Here} showing that President Trump’s lead in the Republican 2024 primary has grown even bigger since the fraudulent and politically motivated indictment by the DOJ.

[ Data Here ]

(via NBC News) – Former President Donald Trump has expanded his lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republican presidential field since Trump’s latest indictment on federal criminal charges, according to a new national NBC News poll.

We all know what the tag-team duos are doing in the 2024 race.  The goal of both election control corporations, the DNC and RNC, is to keep Donald Trump from destroying the system they have carefully created.  The billionaire donors are desperate to maintain the illusion of choice.

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CTH has said for a year the Achilles heel Ron DeSantis carries, the weak spot that outlines his neocon nature, becomes extremely visible on the subject of Ukraine.

Twice previously, DeSantis has tried to walk the tightrope and navigate his lies surrounding the Ukraine war. Each time he outlines something that leans toward Ukraine needing to concede to Russia and NATO needing to stop meddling on Russia borders, he immediately walks back his comments.  DeSantis is stuck on the issue of Ukraine because DeSantis cannot be honest about his position on Ukraine.

Today in South Carolina [Forbes got the state wrong in the title] the issue of Ukraine surfaced in a public Q&A (video below), and both times DeSantis ducked, obfuscated, distracted and refused to answer the question.  The second person asked more directly, “What are you going to do about the war in Ukraine?”, because DeSantis never answered the first questioner. WATCH [prompted to 01:08:23]

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Only Donald Trump has the solution to the Ukraine war.  (1) Stop NATO, namely U.S. created, from provoking nonsense antagonisms on Russia’s border; and (2) Force Zelenskyy to the negotiation table of reality.  The Ukraine war stops immediately the day after the 2024 election, if Trump wins.

However, Ron DeSantis cannot take that attitude or foreign policy approach.  DeSantis must maintain the approved Republican pro-war narrative as outlined by Democrats, Republicans, UniParty, and the DC political leadership writ large.  The DC position on the Ukraine war is all about money; DeSantis must maintain that policy.

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This is a totally freehand writing for CTH readers, not written with any intent other than our conversation.

For a long time, I have written various forms of an article and deleted it – crumpled it up and thrown it away… because it’s just so hard to write about.

However, an insightful comment by Dutchman today has just pushed me to write it.  Unlike most writing, this is no notes, few citations, just thoughts.

You guys are having a discussion about Larry Hogan’s commentary to CBS News.

In the middle of the discussion, someone writes the familiar and common sentiment about Ron DeSantis, a reasonably decent and good governor, doing his big politically stupid run for 2024.   Dutchman responds:

DUTCHMAN – […] “IMHO, you and others who express your sentiment, don’t REALLY “get it”;

The WHOLE reason DeSantis was the most popular Governor throughout his first term, was a CON;
EVERY action he took as Governor, was a political calculation planned and intended to create the image of “the free State of Florida” and RDS as “Trump lite”.

It wasn’t that “he changed” after getting the $millions, he was ALWAYS terrible at connecting with voters, a terrible campaigner, and he was NEVER MAGA; it was all a “PR.” or advertising campaign to create a totally artificial, and unconnected from reality IMAGE.

And it is that IMAGE that people “fell in love with” and it never existed.

This is important because if people don’t understand this, recognize they were “conned” and understand HOW they were manipulated, they will keep falling for it, every time.

However, once you understand your own vulnerability to being manipulated, accept you need to CHANGE how you view things, THEN you won’t need someone else (like Sundance) to point it out to you, again.

5 minutes of OBJECTIVELY looking at a candidate, will be about 4 1/2 minutes more than necessary, to spot the phonies.” (link)

Perhaps, let me take you back to the spring of 2022 in my thoughts, and show you just how subtle, weird and difficult it is to really understand the nature of this political world we are in right now.  A political world where nothing is what it seems.  I have been inside this research rabbit hole for over a decade, so bear with me.

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Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is big mad at all the billionaires that are pouring money into Ron DeSantis and not providing enough money for the other guys, like himself, who isn’t even a candidate.

Hogan hates Donald Trump and finds himself bitter and angry that political income (general political grifting) has become much harder now. The billionaires are all searching for someone, anyone who can defeat Trump and his insufferable America-First agenda. Hogan jumps up and down shouting look at me, over here, I’m acceptable; but the billionaires are just not giving him any attention. It is tough to be Larry Hogan right now.

In this video Hogan blasts Ron DeSantis campaign and says it’s likely the end of the DeSantis effort. WATCH (prompted):

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Fox News broke up the extensive interview with President Trump into two parts.  The second part aired tonight with Brett Baier {Direct Rumble Link}.

In this segment President Trump takes some of the 2024 criticism head-on and does a great job.  From the economy and energy policy to the disloyal perspective of Ron DeSantis, to the COVID-19 vaccine criticism, to the social and cultural issues, Trump hits on all cylinders. WATCH:

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This is the big one.  The Economic Policy is the distinct and singular policy at the core of Make America Great Again.  The MAGA coalition is centered around the principles of America First economics, and Ron DeSantis has just admitted he does not support them.

CTH has long warned about Ron DeSantis’ economic policy being driven by the donors who fund him.  When he was in congress, DeSantis voted in support of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) for President Obama, and DeSantis voted in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP).

These are the trade policies supported by the Club for Growth who was congressman DeSantis’ biggest funder.  The Club for Growth also held the pre-announcement donor fundraiser in February of this year in support of DeSantis ’24.

The Wall Street billionaire, hedge fund, multinational corporate alliance, that assembles at Sea Island and funds Ron DeSantis, are fully against America First trade and economic policies.  DeSantis has just made an admission of his alignment with that corporate “globalist” outlook to a private confab of donors in California.

The DeSantis campaign is in full panic and retreat mode now that his establishment position is exposed.  The statements during the secret meeting were leaked.

[CALIFORNIA] […] The Republican snuck in and out of the Coalinga landmark undetected by the public nor the media, by design. He flew in and out of the nearby Coalinga airport, ushered to the back loading docks by unmarked Fresno County Sheriff’s vehicles.

The Central Valley lunch stop for 60 donors — paying $3,300 — was in between a breakfast event in Sacramento, and an evening in southern California.  The only indication that something special was going on was a “private event” sign. Most of the questions for the security guard related to the location of the restrooms.

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Yeah, he really did that. Folks, I’m not sharing this to be snarky about Ron DeSantis per se’, this isn’t actually his messaging. It’s worth looking at this through the prism of who is operating the management, branding and communication effort. This level of ridiculous religious pandering is stunningly identical to Ted Cruz in the early 2016 GOP nomination.

The DeSantis campaign knows they need to target evangelical and faith-based voters. Put a group of people who are not actually centered on the principles of faith in charge of a political campaign, tell them they need to appeal to faith-based voters, and this is exactly what you get.

The DeSantis campaign organizes what should be an interview with friendly allies in the Christian Broadcasting Network. [Full Interview Here]  CBN’s David Brody then interviews Ron DeSantis asking him what historic figures he would associate himself with. DeSantis’s answer is so far beyond pandering cringe, it makes you seriously wonder who constructed this messaging for him [likely, Jeff Roe]. WATCH:

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Grandma’s rules apply to me providing any further commentary on the issue, but wow – just wow.

That campaign must be under so much external pressure from the GOPe donors, it’s unreal to watch.

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