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DAVID:
What is up everybody? David Bozell from the ForAmerica headquarters, doing our first of many presidential power rankings. Now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna rank the three that are in plus DeSantis, who I think-- everyone pretty much knows is gonna get in and... we'll leave we'll leave some of the ancillary players aside.
The Pences, the Pompeos, the Tim Scotts, we won't worry about them, but we ran an interesting poll on the ForAmerica channel, and so you've probably seen this kind of thing where it says thumbs up if you're for DeSantis or click the heart button if you're for Trump.
And this is not scientific folks, okay, so this is not a breaking news new poll, none of that. It's, if you like one guy, you click the thumbs up button. If you like another guy, you click the heart button. Now, before everyone gets themselves into a tizzy and says see there's momentum... there are a lot of studies out there that suggest that the like button typically wins because people are just accustomed to hitting the like button rather than the love button, the heart button. So, we just put it out there.
We got over 3000 response in 24 hours; 1,700 preferred Desant DeSantis, 56% to 1,300 for Trump, which is about 43.33%. We're gonna rerun this. We're not gonna announce when we rerun it, probably sometime around the same time next week, and we're gonna reverse the two buttons.
We'll see where these guys land. But as of now, according to our channels, 56% of you would prefer DeSantis over Trump. However, the commentary is almost universally pro Trump.
Fan Highlights:
So, Miss Sherry said "Trump needs to finish his job. He started, we all need him. He can manage the storms, take care of the elderly, hardworking people, farmers, et cetera."
John said, "I live in Florida. I don't wanna lose DeSantis as my governor"
Terry, "Trump with DeSantis as his VP and then DeSantis can be president." That seems to be a common thread.
Don says, "I like Ron and I really hope he plans to run in 2028. Ron is a young man. He can wait his turn."
Steven says, "both." You gotta pick one, dude.
Matthew says, "dig DeSantis as well, I just think Trump needs to finish what he started." That's another common theme-- giving Trump the opportunity to finish what he started or essentially reclaim what a lot of the base feels was stolen from him.
Marcy says, "love them both. I'm good with either one."
Evan, same thing. "I like them both."
Deborah's very pro DeSantis: "DeSantis 2024. Highly decorated military man who fought for our country and will fight for all Americans."
Michelle, "Trump to fix the broken economy in 2024 with DeSantis as his VP, then DeSantis in 2028."
Susan says, "like them both but Trump has already proven he can do the job." Frankly, I'm with Susan on that one in the sense that all of these candidates are gonna be promising things that Trump has essentially already done. Now on the domestic side of things, there's too much emphasis on executive orders because Congress just did not want to help him at all, and Trump's legislative affairs team was just not up to the task. And of course, you get the John McCain thumbs down, et cetera, et cetera, which just the John McCain thumbs down vote on the healthcare deal was a green light for moderate Republicans to give Trump thumbs down on lots of things.
You just didn't see it on CSPAN, but there were just quiet overtures back to the White House from Republicans on Capitol Hill. Nope, I don't wanna vote for it. I'd rather spend money that we don't have. But there's a lot of sentiment out there that he needs to finish the job.
For me, if he can codify his agenda into real legislation backed by a Republican chamber in Congress, then you know, the best really is yet to come.
Maria, "this is a tough one. I'd like to see Trump with DeSantis as VP then DeSantis for eight years. We need 12 years to clean it up."
Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot. Trump is the CEO and DeSantis is the COO.
So really there's the prevailing commentary is Trump, then DeSantis. If you lived in Florida, you know how he handled the worst hurricane in our history. He has the right values, ideas, military background for these never ending conflicts and knows how to get the job done without putting his foot in his mouth.
Now, here's David. A little personal here, "Trump is too old. He just needs to back somebody. Time for new blood. That job is a young man's game." That's interesting perspective.
This is Richie, "none of this will matter without election integrity." I'm with Richie on that one.
TRUMP
But okay. We've got candidates here, so let's rank how they've done so far this week. Trump was the first out of the blocks now. I've got Trump number one this week in my presidential power rankings, the first ever ForAmerica Presidential power rankings.
And let me tell you why: his trip to East Palestine was a home run. Not only did he donate thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of pounds of food and water. He put the Biden administration on total defense. All week long about this thing. And, but more importantly, you could just tell the genuine reaction from the town of East Palestine that they were appreciative that somebody who could speak publicly on their behalf, came and visited them.
And you just love the press, "when the President of the United States comes to a town, it takes away resources." Just making excuses for Biden.
By the way, I don't know when he landed from Poland, but he's definitely sleeping one off.
Nobody's heard from him in a couple of days now since his European trip.
I guess the sound of the sirens in Ukraine just got to be too much for him, he's nowhere to be found. Buttigieg was on his heels all week long vis-a-vis East Palestine and a lot of that, 90% of that, is a credit to putting it on the front pages, making it a story and that's what being president is all about, right?
Going out and helping your fellow American and this poor town. 4,800 people, 36 train cars, three dozen train cars mangled in their town filled with some of the most toxic stuff that you would never wanna put into your body. These chemicals are designed to make plastics and packaging materials and paint, and I guess some people eat paint chips as a kid, but still, nevertheless, putting that aside, normal people don't really want to be ingesting these chemicals.
So they needed somebody who could stir up the hornets nest and Trump did it.
You also had this wacko girl from Georgia... the woman who was responsible for swearing in of the jury down in Georgia... Let's play the clip here, going on this media tour. Just a disaster. If you were interested in indicting Trump, just a total disaster. What a weirdo. And I'm sure you've seen her. Let's just play one clip of that. This is the lead juror in the Trump-Georgia Grand jury.
Okay, so I think he's in the clear, I think Trump's in the clear now. So, when you consider the power rankings, you gotta consider all these things, even though that was a total unforced error. On... this George Grand juror's part. And this prosecutor, this Fulton County prosecutor that's out to get him, totally unforced error. But hey, look... it benefits Trump here.
So again, pointing... in Trump's direction, and then his video talking about ending the Ukraine-Russian war, I thought was terrific. He takes the State Department's task and essentially blames them, blames Biden for engineering this conflict-- engineering this war. And then makes the promise to the American people that the funding would end and that the peace deal would be made within 24 hours of his inauguration that he could get it done. So that has Reagan Iranian hostage vibes to me, right? That is a concrete piece of foreign policy, concrete pledge. "I will end this war that's been on your screens for the better part [of a year]." And by then, 2024. We'll be talking about the two or three year anniversary of this conflict of this war.
And here he's going to promise. By the way, if this does go on sidebar, I bet you that... the press will stop talking about Russia and the longer it goes on, not just out of boredom, but because of the political liability that it brings to Biden. So that's just a little bit of a prediction.
We'll have to revisit that one in a couple in next year. But by next year, the two three year anniversary of this thing, here's Trump laying the groundwork, saying and planting his flag, "I could end this in a day." Right? So he had Janet Yellen today promising another 10 billion in US aid... Biden over in Ukraine to start the week promising another 500 million.
These are two separate speeches. I think they're, as far as I can tell, these are two separate aid packages. I don't know where they're getting their numbers from or maybe they're pulling them from the things that have already passed. Who knows? Doesn't matter. Even if they're not, they'll just try to print it and send it anyway, so this, you got multiple people within the administration just promising more and more.
And obviously the Mitch McConnell winning of the Republican party is doing the same thing. And here's Trump's coming out. Comes out with a... with a great video. We should play a little bit of it. Here he is.
I think that's gonna be some secret sauce for him. I really do. Just don't un underestimate that. Do not underestimate war fatigue. I think that stuff is real and and it crosses party lines too. Good on Trump. So I'm giving him,
President Trump is the leader in the clubhouse
in the First for America presidential power rankings.
DESANTIS
Now the candidate that people expect to be a candidate, Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida. He also had a very good week... Isn't competition wonderful? Isn't capitalism great blood? Thirsty capitalism? These guys are competing hard with one another. It's only gonna make them better. It's only gonna make the campaign better.
It's only gonna make their promises better. It's only gonna make them, it's gonna make them better candidates. Keep it clean. Hopefully, probably not. I'm not naive, but here's DeSantis today requiring Floridians if you are not a citizen of the country, you are not gonna be voting in a Florida elections. Roll the tape.
Amen to that. Amen to that. If you're not a citizen of this country, you should not be voting in our election. He also announced some initiatives in Florida to combat Biden's border disasters. Now, there's one piece of this that I can't stand, and that's the e-verify piece and the e-verify.
In my opinion, I've always hated it. I think I'm, I'm maybe one of the few conservatives that have always hated it. I don't think, I don't think that we should be burdening private enterprise, small businesses with the national security apparatus of the United States. People are trying to make a living.
They're trying to paint homes. They're trying to have a bar. They're trying to operate a golf course. And to regulate that, they have to run this sort of... it's called E-Verify, verified citizenship program out of their local bar's, office, I just-- that's the government's job.
Never been a big fan of putting that on small business. But DeSantis has a little bit of a he admits this is him talking about Florida how crowded it is and how he's getting it's just overwhelmed with people moving from all, all over the place, all across the country, and he's trying to preserve some jobs for Floridians. Roll the tape.
So the state's getting very crowded. We can't take any more illegals.
Look I understand what he's trying to do... I just wish that there was another way to do that other than burdening small business with verifying the citizenship of its employees. But that's Florida's decision to make. Local first. But he also increases penalties for human smuggling.
He's got some crackdown initiative initiatives on nonprofits that are running around trying to create IDs for illegal immigrants. And then he's gonna invalidate all out-of-state licenses. This is all according to Florida's voice a Florida News channel down there. He's gonna invalidate all out-of-state licenses for illegal immigrants.
So those are terrific things. Everything I'm cool with. Except for the E-verify portion. But I quibble. He also went to Chicago to recruit cops to come down to Florida, which I thought was awesome. Awesome. So it keeps that issue, keeps the issue of crime... in the front of people's minds.
But he's doing the right thing. This is what Federalism is all about. He's trying to convince some good cops outta Chicago to come down to Florida and work with them and who can blame him? Besides, he's got an influx of people, he's got police, so good on him.
The other thing I give DeSantis credit for is the first lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis. She was out there this week talking about cancer treatment. She did a terrific job talking, she's a cancer survivor, so she takes the issue seriously, and she wants to reimagine how they do cancer treatment care in the state of Florida.
But she's very good on stage, very good on the dais, and I can envision a scenario where Casey DeSantis is a little bit of a secret weapon, and now you've got two DeSantises traveling the country, campaigning. They can be in different spots and she can command a stage just as well, if not better than her husband.
She's probably the better retail politician, whereas Governor DeSantis is, the better tactician. But when it comes to pressing the flesh, you probably have to give the edge to the first lady. And so she's very comfortable in crowds and I think she's I think she's a little bit of a secret weapon.
Not a lot of these candidates have their spouses running around campaigning for them... I think she's going to be an integral part of the DeSantis campaign operation. So that was one of my big criticisms of Trump. I would've preferred to have seen a lot more of Melania, not just during the campaign seasons.
Both of them. Both of them, but during his presidency... I would've preferred to have seen, obviously she's gorgeous, so there's that reason; but, she's also - she has a terrific story and Americans tend to like their first ladies... she's a political asset. Good. First ladies to potential First Ladies.
Good political assets to deploy and so I don't know, I don't know anything about Melania Trump's desire to campaign and do those types of things. Certainly heard the rumors that she just wasn't comfortable, didn't like it, didn't wanna do it. But those are just rumors.
When she was called to do it because the time called for it, she did quite well. So, I just didn't understand why that was. Those instances were few and far between... Two candidates are better than one, so don't sleep on Casey. DeSantis role in the 2023 & 2024 Presidential race.
RAMASWAMY
Vivek Ramaswamy, I've got him number three in the ForAmerica Presidential Power rankings. He launches his campaign this week. Very good rollout. He's a terrific speaker. He has terrific use of social media. He's got a good message. He needs to be a little bit more on the on the kitchen table issues. The price of everything is too damn expensive and he's out there very articulate and very correct about this insidious relationship between government and corporate America.
Very correct. But that can be, that's not exactly the water cooler kitchen table issue. That I think elects presidents. So I think he's gotta have a little bit of a command, a better command on what is what issues are worrying people when they wake up in the morning and as they lay their heads down at night.
Otherwise I fear he might be the right wing version of an Andrew Yang. Just never get off the ground again. A good speaker, good use of social. He's got a pet issue. But he just doesn't pierce through. He's a Fox darling. He's a Bill Maher, HBO darling. I'd love his commitment to end race-base affirmative action. Let's play that. It's a it's a terrific pledge.
First off, I don't think Trump doesn't do something out of fear, that my guess is nobody probably showed it to him cuz it's so old. You're talking about an executive order from the 1960s and so good on Vivek to for finding out about that and it's a terrific pledge to undo it via executive order. I'd be more impressed if he pledged again to codify that into legislation and demand that Congress supply him the President, if he were to be elected with legislation, for him to sign that obliterates that because any executive order can be reversed.
Just look at Trump. So much of Trump's domestic production, domestic policy achievements were done through executive order. That Biden just extinguished Keystone Pipeline. The price of insulin is probably my favorite one, right? Something that. Probably nobody did a good enough job bragging about the price of insulin and what Trump did with that.
There are 8 million, eight and a half million insulin users across the country that are probably single issue voters about the price of their insulin. And so now, look,
Trump brought the price of that down via executive order. Biden gets rid of it and then installs another one and claims that he reduced the price of insulin.
It's just absurd. So again, good pledge. Very good pledge. But. But it could be, reversing that could be just reversing, that executive order could be reversed again in four years if you were to lose a reelection campaign. Again, I'd just much rather see these guys demand Congress, send them bills that they can codify into legislation.
It's just much more powerful. But again, he had a terrific rollout. And he spent a lot of his time in New Hampshire. I read he was born in Ohio. He has not gone to East Palestine. He's gotta be able to do those types of things. He's gotta be able to press the flesh. I'm not sure if he can handle that, but I think he's, I'd like to see him on the debate stage.
I really would. I really, with the big dogs, I really would much more than some of these other guys that are flirting with running.
HALEY
Which brings us to number four, last place in our ForAmerica presidential power rankings. And that is Mrs. Nikki Haley. Look, she gets a gift, a gift because her launch went nowhere.
And Don Lemon gives her a gift. by saying some of those stupid idiotic comments that, she's not in her prime and then she's trying to turn that around and sell coozies that say, "past her Prime, hold my beer." Okay. But that was a gift because that launch fell totally flat. If I have to hear one more time that she kicks with her heels forward it's, no, that's a no, that's a no.
Is she going to have, I'll tell you what kind of support she's gonna have. Southern church going conservative, but not overtly politically active. Concerned, but... no real activism. There are other important things in life, faith being among them, and I think she'll have, I think she'll have a good, decent base of support from which to work with...
But I just don't, and I, and when she first launched, I thought she's gonna be, she might be a tougher out than people realize.
I just thought her rollout was doodoo... doodoo.
Again, the programmed language. And then Don Lemon gives her a gift. And then Tucker Carlson properly shuts her down. Here was Tucker talking about Nikki Haley a couple nights ago.
She may be running to be the Republican nominee, but she is fundamentally indistinguishable from the neoliberal donor base of the Democratic party. Nikki Haley believes in collective racial guilt. She thinks Ukraine's borders are more important than our own. Far more important, she believes identity politics is her future; "vote for me because I'm a woman."
She says that's her pitch. Yeah, it's offensive. The identity politics screed is offensive. No, I have no use for that in 2024, so I hope she does. I saw some pictures of her at a town hall in Iowa, and people were saying how crowded it was. I counted two rows front and back, like two rows behind her, two rows in front of her, in her circle.
Maybe 30 people, maybe I don't know, less than a week after your launch and you've got 30 to 40 people in a room in critical state of Iowa? I don't think so. But we'll see. We'll see in the next iteration of the ForAmerica presidential power rankings, if Nikki Haley can go up or down and. We're gonna leave Tim Scott and Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, and any other Mike's and any other Scott's, Rick Scott, that wanna run for president. We're gonna leave them off to the side right now. We're focused on the three that are in and obviously will add DeSantis because that seems his candidacy seems inevitable, but we've got 'em ranked:
Trump
DeSantis
Vivek
Vivek's got a cool logo, by the way. And four, a distant fourth, Nikki Haley.
All right, folks. Enjoy the weekend. If you're up north, dig out from your snow, methodically, take breaks, drink lots of hot toddies. And if you're in the beautiful South, well, enjoy this warm weather. It's awesome.
Okay, over and out.