The '24 Seven - 3/6/24
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.
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The General Election is Here, Ep. 38 …
1 Haley out
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announced Wednesday she was suspending her bid for the White House — the full announcement here, via C-SPAN. Haley challenged former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive nominee for the Republican nomination, to win over her supporters, who make up a sizable chunk of the Republican electorate.
Haley’s announcement follows after a pair of surprise victories in Washington, D.C. and Vermont, by the insurgent Republican candidate and surprisingly strong showings in contests across the country which revealed deep reservations among Republicans about Trump, but hardly enough to derail him from winning the nomination.
This clears a path for Trump to the Republican nomination.
2 Paid subscriber chat at 11a ET
Reminder that myself,
will host our weekly chat to answer questions from paying subscribers at 11a ET (just. a few minutes away!) — Link here.This is an added bonus for our paying subscribers, we’ve got plenty to talk about in a busy week.
3 Palmer victory
“Who is Jason Palmer?”
That’s the question everyone in the political world (which seems to be “right-sizing” after massive expansion years ago) asked themselves last night after the Baltimore entrepreneur upset President Joe Biden in the American Samoa Democratic caucuses. Palmer beat the president 51-40 … that’s the number of people who caucused, not the percentage.
(Ed note: You can tell Palmer’s a Baltimore guy by his proper pronunciation of “phone.” Here’s a quick primer you can try at home, first say “phone” like a normal human being. Now, scrunch your nose like some Old Bay went down the wrong pipe, channel your inner Earl Weaver and say “FA-ohn” — the long “A” slides right into a very short “o”.
4 Biden plays
When New Yorker writer Evan Osnos interviewed Biden in January for his latest book, the incumbent president walked Osnos to the White House dining room to show him where Trump cloistered himself away on January 6th, watching rioters attack police officers and refusing attempts to call them off.
Biden delivers the State of the Union address Thursday night. The president has been increasingly aggressive against the former president, as the two square off for a rematch in November.
5 The Moneyed
Trump asked Elon Musk for money in a private meeting at his South Florida resort, the New York Times scooped Tuesday. Trump has increasingly been pressing his wealthy peers to give handily as he looks to pay a pair of hefty fines resulting from his defaming of advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and defrauding of New York. Adding to his money problems is that “small dollar” donors, who were pumped repeatedly over the past eight years or so, appear to be running out of steam.
6 McConnell endorses Trump
Retiring Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Wednesday he was supporting Trump for the Republican nomination, just minutes after Haley dropped out.
7 “Indestructible”
Fellow Substack journo and veteran politics observer
posts this classic “Simpsons” clip of Montgomery Burns discovering he has so many diseases that they cancel each other out … thus making him “indestructible”. Trump, like Burns, has so many flaws (from bragging about molesting women years ago, to his attempt to overthrow his election loss and a recent turn to using the language of dictators) that it’s hard to keep track of — at the moment.The question now is how much Biden and his team will be able to pierce that veil playing clips of the former president, who offered a lot of content — from tweets to press conferences — during his four years in the White House, and how much Trump’s ace campaign team will be able to deflect that coverage.
Chris and I talked about this dynamic last night on Sirius XM’s 124 POTUS for special live coverage of the Super Tuesday results with anchor Steve Scully.