DeSantis Campaign Was Totally Behind Those Controversial Meme Videos

Posted on by David Kurtz

Greetings from Martha’s Vineyard, where Morning Memo has relocated until Labor Day. The same essential news, just 10 degrees cooler. Sign up for the email version.

MUST READ

Semafor has an exclusive look at internal DeSantis campaign communications about the meme-filled videos produced in-house then distributed on the sly via supportive Twitter accounts:

The videos include two that have created recurring distractions for his campaign in recent weeks: an anti-Trump video that featured a fascist symbol, and another that attacked Donald Trump for past comments supportive of LGBT rights.

The meme-filled videos emerged from a Signal channel called “War Room Creative Ideas,” screenshots of which were shared with Semafor and whose authenticity was confirmed by a second source familiar with the campaign.

DeSantis staffers were gleeful about their efforts:

Screenshots of the “War Room” chat reviewed by Semafor included staffers praising a widely-derided and since-deleted video — originally posted on an anonymous account, “Ron DeSantis Fancams” — that included a version of the Sonnenrad, a symbol associated with Nazi Germany.

“This belongs in the Smithsonian,” wrote Kyle Lamb, the campaign’s director of research and data, before the video blew up in the campaign’s face. 

It includes a special cameo by longtime DeSantis spox Christina Pushaw, who now runs his campaign’s rapid response team.

Indictment Watch

Today could be the day for the Jan. 6 indictment of Trump:

  • The vibe …
  • Politico: 2 more Trump indictments loom. Here are all the names to know.

The Interesting Case Of Yuscil Taveras

Lisa Rubin: Why the target letter to an uncharged Mar-a-Lago employee matters

Another Delay In The MAL Case

The arraignment of Carlos De Oliveira, the new co-defendant in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, was postponed while he finds local counsel.

A Damage Assessment

Tess Bridgeman and Ryan Goodman: National Security Implications of Trump’s Superseding Indictment In The MAL Case

Trump’s Jam-Packed Legal Calendar

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has signaled he may be open to moving Trump’s trial in the hush-money case to accommodate other pending prosecutions.

Journo Subpoenaed By Fani Willis

  • AJC: Journalist who observed GOP electors subpoenaed in Fulton Trump case
  • The Intercept: I Was Just Subpoenaed By Trump’s Georgia Grand Jury. Here’s What I’ll Tell Them.

Georgia Judge Shoots Down Absurd Trump Play

Donald Trump’s effort to use state courts to block Fani Willis’ criminal investigation of him foundered again.

Dennis Aftergut: Another Judge Smacks Down Another Frivolous Trump Case

NYT: Judge Rejects Trump’s Effort to Short-Circuit Georgia Election Case

Bloomberg: Trump Strikes Out in Effort to Suppress Georgia Grand Jury

Lindsey Graham Out There Delegitimizing Jury Trials

Quote For The Ages

It’s always unpleasant when you have to go in and tell your wife that, ‘By the way, tomorrow sometime I’m going to be indicted.’

–Donald John Trump

More On Trump’s Money Woes

A few additional tidbits from the latest FEC filings:

  • Roger Sollenberger does the math and concludes that initial reports showing former President Trump with $40.2 million in legal expenses was exactly double the amount actually incurred.

The early news reports—sourced from “people familiar with the filing”—and the disclosure itself don’t provide enough data to show where the error lay. However, the seemingly neat halfway split could suggest an accounting mistake—or, alternatively, possibly unreliable or intentionally misleading sourcing

  • NYT: After Paying Lawyers, Trump’s PAC Is Nearly Broke
  • A refund of $60 million from Trump’s Make America Great Again super PAC to his Save America PAC is “believed to be larger than any other refund on record in the history of federal campaigns,” according to the NYT.

2024 Ephemera

  • NYT: “A super PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign said on Tuesday that it had reserved more than $13 million in television and digital ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting in August.”

The Heath Hens Are Coming Home To Roost

Massachusetts district attorney sends letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding a federal investigation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ scheme last year to ship migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.

Menendez Scandal Watch

NYT: A Senator’s New Wife and Her Old Friends Draw Prosecutors’ Attention

Federal Judge Blocks Idaho Abortion Prosecutions

Idaho Capital Sun: “A federal judge in Idaho has granted a preliminary injunction barring Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador from taking legal action against medical providers who refer patients across state lines for abortion care and denied Labrador’s request to dismiss the case.”

Phew, That Was Close

A shot off the post by Portugal in the 91st minute was all that stood between the U.S. women’s team and an epic elimination from the World Cup they came in heavily favored to win. As it is, the U.S. advances after surviving a draw with Portugal.

RIP Paul Reubens

The actor best known for creating Pee-wee Herman died at age 70 after a cancer diagnosis that he kept private.

Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman during Pee-wee Herman Performance – June 12, 1984 at Park West in Chicago, Illinois, United States. (Photo by Paul Natkin/WireImage)

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Where Things Stand: DeSperate DeSantis Tries To Appeal To … Someone On Abortion

Posted on by Nicole LaFond

As my colleague Josh Marshall notes below, today’s Times/Siena Poll gives us the clearest sign yet that, if you’re a Republican candidate and you’re not named Donald Trump, your grip on the Republican Party and the minds and hearts of GOP voters is tenuous at best and barely existent at worst.

Continue reading “Where Things Stand: DeSperate DeSantis Tries To Appeal To … Someone On Abortion” →

Massie Suggests Maybe DeSantis Should Get Indicted To Strengthen His 2024 Bid 

Posted on by Emine Yücel

​​Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) — one of the few House Republicans to endorse Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 2024 bid — joked that DeSantis should get indicted in order to boost his poll numbers among voters.

Continue reading “Massie Suggests Maybe DeSantis Should Get Indicted To Strengthen His 2024 Bid “ →

By Every Imaginable Measure, Trump Crushing GOP Primary Race

Posted on by Josh Marshall

In line with our recent theme, the Times is out today with a poll that is absolutely devastating for Ron DeSantis. But in truth it is devastating for every Republican candidate not named Donald Trump. It is only devastating for DeSantis inasmuch as he is the only candidate who appears to be in the race at all rather than running what amounts to a novelty or lifestyle campaign. According to the Times/Siena Poll, nationwide Trump has 54% of Republicans supporting him compared to 17% for DeSantis. The next five runners-up either have 2% or 3%. As I said, in practical terms, they’re not even in the race.

Is the fractured field preventing DeSantis from breaking through? Not really. If all the other candidates dropped out and gave DeSantis a clear one-on-one matchup, Trump would still be disemboweling him by a 62% to 31% margin.

Continue reading “By Every Imaginable Measure, Trump Crushing GOP Primary Race” →

Jack Smith Kept On Truckin’ Even After The MAL Indictment

Posted on by David Kurtz

Greetings from Martha’s Vineyard, where Morning Memo has relocated until Labor Day. The same news and commentary except sun-dappled and sandy-toed. Sign up for the email version.

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop

It turns out that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago investigation didn’t stop with the June indictment of Donald Trump and Walt Nauta. We knew that in a general sense, but it could have been the usual tying up loose threads in a case before trial. Not so, we now know.

It appears that a Mar-a-Lago employee decided after the June indictments that he had more to share with prosecutors. This sometimes happens when shit gets real for potential defendants and witnesses. The employee is Yuscil Taveras, who oversees Mar-a-Lago’s security cameras, according to multiple reports.

“After Trump and Nauta were indicted in June, however, Taveras decided he had more he wanted to tell the authorities about his conversations with De Oliveira, according to people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions,” the WaPo reports.

According to CNN:

  • Taveras received his target letter from federal prosecutors after the June MAL indictment;
  • Taveras met with investigators after the June indictment;
  • At least some of the superseding indictment is based on information from Taveras, who is identified as “Trump Employee 4”;
  • “After receiving the target letter, Taveras changed lawyers because his attorney, Stan Woodward, also represented Nauta, which presented a conflict, sources said.” The WaPo reports that the new lawyer was not paid by the Trump PAC.

So in short, Taveras receives a target letter that conflicts out his attorney, he gets a new attorney, he meets with the feds, a superseding indictment soon follows. A + B + C may not equal D, but that’s a pretty familiar and well worn path for witnesses under the gun to take. It shows that Smith’s team was not nearly done when the indictment initially came down.

We’ve Heard This Before …

Carlos De Oliveira, the newest co-defendant in the Mar-a-Lago case, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday morning in Miami, but is reportedly having trouble finding a local lawyer in south Florida.

Catching Up On New Figures In The MAL Case

WaPo: Trump aide Carlos De Oliveira’s journey from failed witness to defendant

NYT: Minor Characters Emerge to Play Key Roles in Trump Documents Case

Salon: Why are so many people willing to risk it all for Donald Trump?

An Overlooked Jan. 6 Charge

Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann: The “Stop the Count” Scheme Is A Separate Basis For A Charge Under 18 U.S.C. Section 241.

Trump’s Money Woes

  • WaPo: Trump PAC has spent more than $40 million on legal costs this year for himself, others
  • NYT: $60 Million Refund Request Shows Financial Pressure on Trump From Legal Fees
  • NYT: Trump Team Creates Legal-Defense Fund to Cover His Allies’ Bills

Abandoned

NBC News:

NBC News reached out to 44 of the dozens of people who served in Trump’s Cabinet over his term in office. Most declined to comment or ignored the requests. A total of four have said publicly they support his run for re-election. Several have been coy about where they stand, stopping short of endorsing Trump with the GOP primary race underway. Then there are those who outright oppose his bid for the GOP nomination or are adamant that they don’t want him back in power.

This Is Where We Are

  • NYT: Trump Threatens Republicans Who Don’t Help Him Exact Vengeance
  • Untethered:

Trump Defamation Suit Against CNN Dismissed

A judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s nearly half-billion dollar defamation lawsuit against CNN, ruling among other things that the use of “Big Lie” was not defamatory.

How Does One Celebrate A First Impeachment?

WaPo: Trump calls for conditioning Ukraine aid on congressional Biden probes

BFD

President Biden has authored the biggest change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice since its inception in 1950

Seems Like A Nice Guy

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) allegedly screamed and cursed at a group of Senate pages in the Capitol rotunda Wednesday night.

Quiet Week In DC?

Congress is on August recess, and President Biden is on vacation in Delaware. But then again it may not be quiet if a DC federal grand jury indicts ex-President Trump in the Jan. 6 investigation.

In MAGA World, the House Oversight Committee is expected to hear behind closed doors today from Hunter Biden biz partner Devon Archer.

2024 Ephemera

  • NYT: “Former President Donald J. Trump is dominating his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, leading his nearest challenger, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by a landslide 37 percentage points nationally among the likely Republican primary electorate, according to the first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign.”
  • WaPo: Trump gains advantage as states set delegate selection rules
  • NYT: DeSantis Jabs at Trump’s Legal Trouble as He Resets His Campaign
  • Politico: Abigail Spanberger tells Democrats she will run for governor of Virginia

DeSantis Still Taking Hits Over ‘Benefits’ Of Slavery

  • WaPo: Republican presidential hopefuls blast DeSantis over slavery standards
  • Politico: DeSantis rocked by Black Republican revolt over slavery comments

How Lawmakers Armed The NRA

NYT: “Over decades, a small group of legislators led by a prominent Democrat pushed the gun lobby to help transform the law, the courts and views on the Second Amendment.”

Must Read From TPM

Josh Kovensky: Alito Gets Softball WSJ Interview With Attorney On Key Tax Case Before SCOTUS

KBJ Is Bringing It

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern: Ketanji Brown Jackson Has Perfected the Art of Originalism Jujitsu

What Happened To Tricia Cotham?

NYT: Inside the Party Switch that Blew Up North Carolina Politics

Mind Blown

AP:

Death threats forced Irish pop singer Sinead O’Connor to call off a peace concert in Jerusalem in the summer of 1997. At the time, a young man named Itamar Ben-Gvir took credit for the campaign against her.

Today, he is Israel’s national security minister.

The transformation of Ben-Gvir from a fringe Israeli extremist trying to take down O’Connor’s coexistence-themed concert to a powerful minster overseeing the Israeli police force reflects the dramatic rise of Israel’s far-right.

The Race To The Arctic

I hate reducing everything to great power politics, but the race to lay claim to the melting Arctic really is reminiscent of 19th century great power politics.

Science Meets Sci-Fi

NYT: Worms Revived After 46,000 Years Frozen in Siberian Permafrost

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Fulton County DA Says Charging Decision Will Come By Sept. 1 In Trump 2020 Probe

Posted on by Emine Yücel

Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said in an interview over the weekend that she will announce charging decisions in her investigation into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election result by September 1.

Continue reading “Fulton County DA Says Charging Decision Will Come By Sept. 1 In Trump 2020 Probe” →

Schiff Says McCarthy Teased Biden Impeachment To Deal With The ‘Craziest’ Republicans In His Caucus

Posted on by Emine Yücel

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Sunday that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) remarks last week teasing an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is just part of his effort to deal with the “craziest” Republicans in his conference.

Continue reading “Schiff Says McCarthy Teased Biden Impeachment To Deal With The ‘Craziest’ Republicans In His Caucus” →

Doctors Emerge As Political Force In Battle Over Abortion Laws In Ohio And Elsewhere

Posted on by John Light

This story first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

In her eight years as a pediatrician, Dr. Lauren Beene had always stayed out of politics. What happened at the Statehouse had little to do with the children she treated in her Cleveland practice. But after the Supreme Court struck down abortion protections, that all changed.

The first Monday after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling was emotional. Beene fielded a call from the mother of a 13-year-old patient. The mother was worried her child might need birth control in case she was the victim of a sexual assault. Beene also talked to a 16-year-old patient unsure about whether to continue her pregnancy. Time wasn’t on her side, Beene told the girl.

“What if it were too late to get her an abortion? What would they do? And I just, I felt sick to my stomach,” Beene said. “Nobody had ever asked me a question like that before.”

Beene felt she had to do something. She drafted a letter to a state lawmaker about the dangers of abortion bans, then another doctor reached out with an idea to get dozens of doctors to sign on. The effort took off. About 1,000 doctors signed that letter, and they later published it as a full-page ad in The Columbus Dispatch.

Beene felt momentum building within the medical community and decided to help use that energy to form the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights coalition. Now, Beene and the coalition are working to pass a citizen-led amendment to enshrine reproductive rights into the state constitution. The state’s six-week ban on abortion was blocked by a judge in October 2022.

The group is a part of an emerging political force: doctors on the front lines of the reproductive rights debate. In many states, the fight to protect reproductive rights is heating up as 14 states have outlawed abortion. Doctors who previously never mixed work with politics are jumping into the abortion debate by lobbying state lawmakers, campaigning, forming political action committees and trying to get reproductive rights protected by state law.

In Texas, at a two-day court hearing earlier this month , women who were denied abortion care testified they were harmed by the state’s abortion ban. Two Texas doctors, who are plaintiffs, took the stand to testify about the chilling effect they say the laws have had on them. Dr. Damla Karsan, a Houston obstetrician, said she had never testified in a court case before but felt compelled to participate in this one to advocate for her patients and colleagues.

“I feel like I’m being handicapped,” Karsan said, referring to the Texas abortion law. “I’m looking for clarity, a promise that I will not be persecuted for providing care with informed consent from patients that someone interprets is not worthy of the medical exception” that would permit a legal abortion.

Although doctors’ groups have formed on both sides of the issue, most of these groups oppose abortion bans, largely because doctors worry that abortion bans could put their patients’ health at risk. Doctors now find themselves risking criminal and civil penalties in some states if they act to help patients who are suffering.

The Ohio coalition, along with its partners, gathered signatures for months in order to put the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot. The group filed more than 700,000 signatures on its petition, nearly twice the minimum number needed. The amendment’s language would protect several aspects of reproductive medical care, not just abortion: misscarriage care, contraception and in vitro fertilization.

“We see all those areas being negatively impacted by the Dobbs decision,” Beene said. “So we felt that by establishing that fundamental right to reproductive freedom, we would be able to protect all of those issues.”

In Nebraska, doctors formed the Campaign for a Healthy Nebraska PAC, which raised money to target key races, according to the Flatwater Free Press. The group also worked to get the Nebraska Medical Association to publicly oppose abortion restrictions, the news organization reported.

The Good Trouble Coalition in Indiana also mobilized medical professionals to work with legislators on abortion laws.

States including Michigan and Vermont have also used citizen-led ballot initiatives to get reproductive protections included in their constitutions, efforts that were supported by voters. In Michigan, doctors created a committee to help campaign for the proposal. Beene said the Ohio coalition modeled its strategy on Michigan’s approach.

In at least one state, doctors have rallied for a measure that would have limited abortion access.

In Kansas, a coalition of 200 physicians, nurses and pharmacists publicly supported an amendment to remove the right to an abortion from the state constitution, according to the Kansas Reflector. Voters ultimately rejected the amendment, with 59% voting against the initiative.

Mary Ziegler, an abortion historian and a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said medical associations have been involved in the abortion debate before, but the organizing efforts are broader this time, with several doctors’ groups throwing their support behind ballot initiatives that protect reproductive rights and draw widespread public support.

“It’s not a trivial thing that it’s a ballot initiative, because one of the other things we’ve seen is that voters are with them,” Ziegler said. “Doctors who are afraid of alienating potential patients or colleagues are realizing that bans are not popular with most people. So the risk may be lower than people thought of taking a stand.”

Beene prepared for backlash when she and other Ohio physicians came out against abortion bans. But she didn’t expect that lawmakers would try to change the rules needed to pass a citizen-led amendment just months after the coalition started to collect signatures.

Lawmakers in May passed a controversial resolution to raise the threshold needed for an amendment to pass from a simple majority to 60%. Voters will decide whether to adopt the proposal, known as Issue 1, in an Aug. 8 special election.

The Republican-controlled Ohio legislature passed a law last year banning special elections, citing their low turnout and high costs, but state lawmakers scheduled this August’s election despite the ban. Republicans have signaled that this vote on Issue 1 was aimed at blocking the reproductive rights amendment.

Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, a nonpartisan voting rights organization, said the group is against Issue 1 because it would overturn more than 100 years of precedent in the state for how citizen-initiated amendments are passed.

“What they’re trying to do is to trick voters into voting our own rights away in a low-turnout August election,” Miller said. “Even voters who never miss an election are unaware that there is an August special election.”

It’s possible that only a single-digit sliver of the population will vote — records from the Ohio secretary of state’s office show the 2022 August primary election had 8% voter turnout.

If Issue 1 is adopted, the reproductive-rights amendment would require approval from 60% of voters to pass in November, which Beene said she believes is what lawmakers want.

“They’ve sunk to tremendous lows and they’re doing everything they can to try to stop us,” Beene said.

A Recommendation

Posted on by Josh Marshall

I want to recommend you listen to this interview Josh Kovensky did with Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar. It’s very interesting stuff. We’re going to be doing more podcast interviews in addition to the weekly episode Kate Riga and I do. That weekly episode will continue with the same format. So I want to encourage you to check out all of these new episodes. But this is a recommendation especially about this episode. It gave me a lot of new insight into Vladimir Putin’s obsession both with the U.S. and with Ukraine and how the two intersect, long before the triangular relationship between these three countries became such a central feature of U.S. politics. Much of it I knew in a very general outline. But many details were knew to me, as was the discussion of Putin’s relationship with George W. Bush and how the collapse of Bush’s domestic support and eventual departure from the White House was a prelude to what came after. Really fascinating stuff.

If you subscribe to the podcast through whatever service you use it will be in your feed. If you don’t subscribe, please subscribe. And if podcasts aren’t your thing you can listen to it on the site right here.