The ‘24 Seven - 3/18/24
The top seven stories shaping the race for the White House
Hello, and welcome to The ‘24 Seven – 24sight’s daily roundup of the top seven stories shaping the race for the White House. If you see something we missed or have suggestions, drop us a note - tom@24sight.news and warren@24sight.news.
You can also follow us on X.com, the artist formerly known as Twitter, at @the24sight – more socials coming as we continue building out.
Something you’ll notice today, as we keep building out our scrappy operation, we’re highlighting some quality original pieces published today and late Friday — Warren’s surprising find in the 11 GOP senators who haven’t endorsed Trump (hint, it’s not just Romney), Tom’s interview with American Bridge President Pat Dennis for the 24sight Pod and re-upping a deep dive into what’s really going on with the new leadership at the Republican National Committee.
1 Trump’s Senate endorsement holdouts
MAGAworld adores him.
The most conservative House Republicans are champing at the bit to rush him back into the White House.
And then there’s the 11 Senate Republicans who have yet to come around on Trump 2024.
Our exclusive analysis of Trump’s congressional endorsements to date helps shine a light on this curious group of holdouts – some of whom are typically pretty chummy with the former president.
But there are a few, of course, who want nothing to do with the twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted nominee for the top of this year’s GOP ticket.
2 ‘Anybody who tells you they have the solution to this is lying’
That was the answer from longtime Democratic opposition researcher Pat Dennis, who now heads the Democratic mega-group American Bridge — tasked with the unenviable job of finding some way to make one thing stick to former president Donald Trump — in his interview with Tom LoBianco for the 24sight Pod, which just posted midday.
Dennis came up through the ranks of American Bridge, the super PAC launched by former conservative turned Clinton confidant David Brock, which is working with a $200 million budget to try and derail Trump’s surprising popularity with a plurality of the country – in spite of Trump’s overwhelming unpopularity with the rest of the nation
“I run a super PAC and you'd think I would be here saying, super PACs are incredible,” Dennis said. “You need to fund them to the tune of billions of dollars and they can do everything and work. Super PACs can do a lot. The mistake people make is thinking a super PAC is a replacement for a candidate — and they're not.”
The first 20 minutes of the podcast are free for all subscribers - the rest is for paying subscribers only. (Keep us fed here at 24sight, and we’ll keep raking the muck to bring back these and other important stories).
3 Trump bond
As the former president continues trying to delay paying almost half a billion dollars stemming from the New York case which found he defrauded the state by routinely and wildly inflating and deflating property values, his lawyers announced today they have been unable to find banks to back a proposed $464 million bond to keep him from paying the historic fine as he keeps appealing the ruling.
4 Whose party establishment is it anyway
That’s the chief question a number of Republican insiders have been chewing over for more than a week now. 24sight’s Tom LoBianco and Warren Rojas cut through the MAGA shock-and-awe spin Friday for a deep look into how Trump’s third campaign team, and particularly co-chairman Chris LaCivita, pulled the Republican National Committee further into Trump’s camp … by staffing it with veterans of the party establishment.
A GOP super lawyer, veterans with deep ties to the Senate Republican leadership – newly ensconced in Trump’s orbit with the endorsement of Sen. Tim Scott first,
Eyes out: The staff includes veteran hands who worked with Sen. John Cornyn when he ran the NRSC. Now Cornyn is running to lead the Senate Republicans.
5 “Most Americans know what happened”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, arguably the most boring public figure in modern politics, continues to make news by stating the obvious – which oddly counts as newsy when a glut of insanity has turned off mainstream America from politics and the news.
“Most Americans know what happened” Pence said of the January 6th attack on the Capitol on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday.
has a very sharp rundown of why Pence’s normalcy and adherence to his job and oath of office are practically revolutionary at the moment.
6 Rigged elections 101
Aspiring Russian president for life Vladimir Putin handily won re-election Sunday, clinching another 6-year term after allegedly having his chief political opponent murdered and imprisoning other detractors.
Putin’s landslide victory Sunday extends his two decades-long reign over the former Soviet Union while he fights to claw back part of the eroded empire by invading Ukraine. While fellow strongmen like North Korea’s Kim Jung-Un and China’s Xi Jingping hailed Putin’s win, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy condemned his protracted rule.
"There is no legitimacy in this imitation of elections and there cannot be,” Zelenskyy said in an official statement. “This person should be on trial in The Hague. That's what we have to ensure."
Late Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who clashed with Putin for years, died suddenly last month at the Arctic penal colony where he’d been exiled after a near-fatal poisoning attempt in late 2020.
7 ‘Be there, will be wild’
“Bloodbath”, “vermin”, “poisoning of the blood”. They’re just the latest examples of the former president’s increasingly violent rhetoric this campaign cycle — laced with standard tactical exits used by politicians over the years.
After eight years as the most powerful figure in Republican politics, Trump’s a known quantity and the effects of his words are well-known as well. And those who have covered him much longer have often noted that Trump just says things just to say them with little clarity of what he will actually do.
On one hand, rioters convicted of assaulting police officers, smashing through windows and forcing people to shelter for hours during the January 6th insurrection have routinely said in court they felt betrayed by Trump as they were following his orders.
But by another, Trump proved yet again the race is referendum on him, not the guy in office — which the Biden campaign seems happy to help with. (In their ad hitting back at Trump’s latest ambiguous shock comment, the campaign capped it not by saying “Re-elect Biden", but by saying “Stop Trump.”)