USA 2024 Elections Thread

[grarpamp]

> Trump announces 2024 election run and platform.

Politicians and Bribers: Fade the Bulls...

GOP Mega-Donor Ken Griffin: "Three-Time Loser" Trump Shouldn't Run

Citadel founder and mega GOP donor Ken Griffin on Monday labelled
former President Donald Trump a "three-time loser," and expressed his
hope that Trump would opt out of seeking the Oval Office again.

Though Trump proceeded to announce his 2024 candidacy on Tuesday
evening, Griffin's broadside is another signal of broadening
Republican discontent with Trump.

Coming from someone with a net worth of around $29 billion, this
particular critique packs some wallop. Griffin gave almost $60 million
to federal GOP candidates in this year's elections. That made him the
third-largest individual donor, behind conservative Richard Uihlein
($62 million) and leftist George Soros ($128 million.)

At Bloomberg's New Economy Forum in Singapore on Monday, the
54-year-old Griffin offered this pointed view of a Trump's renewed
presidential aspirations

    "I really do hope that President Trump sees the writing on the
wall. He lost in 2020. We lost Georgia because of his behavior in the
Senate race in 2020...that's the second loss. And then this year,
Republicans lost the Senate because the Trump-backed candidates in the
Senate races were rejected by American voters.

    That's a three-time loser, and I'd like to think that the
Republican party's ready to move on from somebody who's been, for this
party, a three-time loser."

    markets: "I really do hope that President Trump sees the writing
on the wall."

    Earlier at the Bloomberg #NewEconomyForum, Citadel’s billionaire
founder Ken Griffin had hoped the former president would not run for
the White House https://t.co/BvelhNCf9J pic.twitter.com/HvfeHwOB18
    — N. G. A. Choffat (@ngachoffat) November 16, 2022

We're happy to see Griffin dredge up Trump's bull-in-a-china-shop
fiasco in the 2020 Georgia Senate runoffs. In case time has dulled
anyone's recollection of Trump's moronic, self-aggrandizing and
unprincipled blunder that helped give the Democrats full legislative
control of Congress, first recall that both of the state's Senate
seats were at stake that year.

At the time, Congress was considering a $900 billion Covid relief
package, which Georgia incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly
Loeffler had both voted for. Trump called the bill a "disgrace" -- and
not because it was wasteful. No, to Trump, the stimulus checks weren't
big enough, and he pushed for increasing them from a "measly $600" to
$2,000.

In doing so, he not only aligned himself with Pelosi, AOC and other
stimulus-happy Democrats, Trump effectively turned the Georgia runoff
into a referendum on whether voters would rather receive $600 or
$2,000 for doing nothing. They elected both Democrats, and got their
extra $1,400 a few months later.
A CNBC headline from December 2020

Back to the present day, Griffin earlier this month said he'd welcome
a run by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: "He has a tremendous record as
governor of Florida, and our country would be well-served by him as
president,” he told Politico.

Griffin backed the DeSantis reelection campaign with a cool $5
million, making him the lockdown-defying governor's top donor. Griffin
has Democratic donations in his history too. In 2008, he raised money
for both John McCain and Barack Obama, and he gave a half-million
dollars to Joe Biden's 2020 inauguration.

Since then, though, he's steered decisively to the right, and given
new emphasis to political contributions in addition to his
philanthropical ones. As he explained to Politico:

    “Charitable giving was the lane that I was most focused on for
many, many years of my life as a means of moving society to a better
place. Watching so much of what I did on the philanthropic side be
undermined by poor policies from our political sphere has pulled me
more into politics with a portion of my resources.”

This summer, Griffin famously moved his residence and Citadel's
headquarters from Chicago to Miami. Leading up to his move, Griffin
had periodically expressed his mounting frustration with the state and
the city -- in particular, its rampant crime and feckless political
leadership.

Praising his new home last week, Griffin said, "When you’ve got great
schools, a great environment and your streets are safe and clean,
that’s when you’ve got a place you want to live in and call home.”