TO: The Honorable Ronald Dion DeSantis
FROM: The Gang of 500
DATE: May 24, 2023
RE: We need to talk….
****
Welcome to the race, Governor.
We like governors!
Haley, Deval, Terry, various Johns.
Governors make great presidential candidates and great presidents, even though few of them typically have dined at Lauriol Plaza before running.
Chances are, if Trump can be stopped, it’s by you. We know that.
So we want to like you – we really do.
You are not making it easy.
Forget the last year, when our conversations about you typically involved trading stories about how discourteous you have been in being late for scheduled meetings (or not showing up at all!), and about how none of us really have any history with you, how your team calls us to ask for checks, but never consults us about policy or even politics.
Even though a lot of us have been ambassadors, assistant and deputy secretaries, and senior presidential campaign advisers. We know stuff about stuff.
Now, how are we supposed to understand a presidential announcement like the one you have scheduled?
Let us break down for you what so unsettles us about today, courtesy of NBC News:
[Elon] Musk and DeSantis will host an event on Twitter Spaces, the site’s platform for audio chats, on Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET. It will be moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is a Musk confidant and DeSantis supporter.
Ok, first, James Baker would never turn the introduction to the voters of an Oval Office aspirant to a loose cannon like Elon Musk.
Second, we’ve got no earthly idea what “Twitter Spaces” is, but audio only?
We agree fully with Politico and our fellow Gang of 500 member Rob Stutzman:
[F]or a politician whose chief vulnerability has long been his perceived lack of interpersonal skills, it is also a major risk.
For one thing, Musk, the polarizing, outgoing CEO of Twitter, is such a controversial and outspoken figure that appearing with him in a high-stakes event leaves uncertain “what comes out of his mouth,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist. “The other thing is, Twitter isn’t America. Why doesn’t he do this where more people will see you?”
And we’ve heard of David Sacks (we think…?), but why is he the moderator?
To make matters even worse from our point of view, you are following up your joint billing with Musk with interviews with Trey Gowdy on Fox and on Mark Levin’s radio show.
This is not normal for someone who is arguing he has a better chance to win a general election than Trump does.
Even Nikki Haley and Tim Scott talked to NBC when they launched.
The far left and Team Trump are united in trying to hijack your public image by painting you as “odd,” “weird,” “off,” “freakish.”
To us, nothing says “odd,” “weird,” “off,” and “freakish” more than Elon Musk, Twitter Spaces, Trey Gowdy, and Mark Levin.
Other stuff related to your launch we think is weird:
1. When reporters emailed Twitter PR to ask about the event, the press team sent an automated reply with a poop emoji. Marlin Fitzwater would never have done that. Heck, even Ari Fleischer wouldn’t have.
2. Your teaser video that your wife tweeted out, intended to make you look heroic, to our eyes is awkward and odd (that way you walk!), harkening back to the widely mocked video you did at the end of your re-elect, in which you seemed to say you were the Second Coming (literally not figuratively).
3. Wiping your website away to show an ominous alligator on a black screen? Sort of cool, maybe, we guess? But, really, just to our mind, again, odd.
We want you to beat Trump, we really do. But we need to know your mind, your heart, your intentions, your strategy.
Trotting out Jeff Roe to the New York Times to walk through the theory of the case on the record is a good placeholder. That’s normal. In our group, that is essential reading.
But where is your known quantity graybeard? We need graybeards, and the semiotic reassurance they bring.
Who is your Charlie Black? Your Mickey Kantor? At this point, heck, we would settle for a Roger Stone even.
We know Tim Scott, and if you continue to falter, we will turn right to him. (Unless Glenn Youngkin runs.)
But we don’t know you.
We love your bio (baseball, military, an outsider who insiders can fall in love with), but you keep stomping on too many of our sacred cows (abortion rights, Zelensky, Bob Iger).
And we value competence and a killer instinct. And outreach, oh, we need outreach.
The Trump people are the darn George W. Bush campaign compared to your squad in terms of outreach. We hear from them all the time.
And it is striking how much Team Trump HATES you and your folks. They are, unlike Trump himself, generally a pretty calm group, not easily riled up. But they have reached a level of animus we haven’t seen since Hillary and Bernie in 2016. That unsettles us, because a lot of the Trump folks know you personally. What makes them so angry about you?
Look, as we said, we wish you the best. We are for ANYONE who can beat Trump. We refresh the primary polling page on RealClearPolitics about a dozen times a day (well, our assistants do it for us). We respect your poll standing, the size of your bank account, your bundlers (some of whom we know…), and (some of) your Florida record.
We hear and think what you do about Trump. With a March trial date in the Stormy Daniels case, his lawyers crying out for a meeting with the attorney general, and the Wall Street Journal saying Jack Smith is closing in, our longstanding group prediction that the law will be the straw that breaks Trump’s back could be coming true. Or maybe it will be a health issue – the guy is under a lot of stress with the long arms of various prosecutors threatening to put him in prison.
So, while, we aren’t on your bandwagon (yet), we could be persuaded to hop aboard.
Almost none of us think Joe Biden is going to end up running, but whether he does or not, we need a Republican nominee for president who is not Donald Trump.
We are prepared to get on that bandwagon of yours, we really are.
But we don’t understand a single thing about the logic of how you are rolling out your rolling in to the race.
And that (along with your poll numbers) has us worried.
Have your folks invite us to a briefing, and maybe ask for our advice.
We’d love to do it.
****
ESSENTIAL SECRET POINT
Forget the 14 Amendment, the discharge petition, the X-date switch, the giant coin, and the Yellen payment options.
Mitch McConnell has a secret plan to avoid a disaster at the last minute.
I can’t tell you what it is, but that unmistakable body language is on display.
DEVELOPING….
****
ESSENTIAL READING
* The Wall Street Journal on the most important relationship on earth – even bigger than Swift-Healy:
After months of recrimination, U.S.-China relations are entering a new phase likely to determine whether the two powers are able to restore high-level exchanges derailed by a Chinese balloon earlier this year.
A first barometer of the chance for success is a dinner planned for Thursday in Washington, where Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will sit down with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Wentao. It will be the first cabinet-level meeting in Washington between the two countries during the Biden administration.
Another test will be whether the top defense officials from both countries hold talks on the sidelines of an annual security forum in Singapore early next month, as has happened in the past. China wants the U.S. to lift sanctions placed years ago on China’s recently appointed defense minister as a precondition for the meeting. President Biden said last weekend that the demand is under discussion, though State Department and other officials later said it isn’t so.
The planned bilateral meetings would represent a “thaw” in contacts as described by Biden—set in motion by an unexpected burst of diplomacy after months of at-times bitter sparring on the global stage.
****
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