This weekend, a group of anti-Trump Republicans will gather in Washington, D.C. to plot strategy for 2024 and support those Republicans at the local and national level who oppose Donald Trump.
The gathering — “Principles First: The Summit” — will be “counterprogramming” to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), scheduled in Orlando this week. Republican attorney Heath Mayo, the founder of Principles First for America, will be hosting the summit.
The two most prominent anti-Trump Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) will be featured speakers at the event. Both members have joined the partisan Democratic hearings on the events of Jan. 6.
Both are scheduled to speak Saturday — the same day that Donald Trump will make his CPAC appearance.
“We want to come together in a visual show of support for people who have taken stands for ideas when it hasn’t been comfortable,” Mayo said to CBS. “You don’t see those folks, yet, in rooms that are energized. But I think the energy is there. We’ll see how many folks show up.”
Mayo added, “I believe there is a lane here for 2024. The party is completely stuck in a rut talking about if the last election is legitimate and if Liz Cheney, [Maryland Governor Larry] Hogan, or someone else is compelling and wants to run, I think a lot of people would listen.”
Actually, not a lot of Republicans would be willing to listen to what Liz Cheney or Larry Hogan have to say about anything. Even fewer would be willing to vote for them.
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Hogan, a Trump critic who recently passed on running for a U.S. Senate seat, has said he would consider a possible run in 2024. Cheney has been feeling out donors and avenues of support for a possible run for president, but like Kinzinger who dropped out of his reelection race, Cheney has no real base of support.
Mayo said a prominent member of the Republican National Committee, Bill Palatucci of New Jersey, was a recent addition to Saturday’s conference schedule. Palatucci’s decision to appear follows tensions inside the RNC about its fervent political and financial support for Trump, who is facing several legal challenges and investigations.
Palatucci, a longtime confidant of Chris Christie, the former GOP governor of New Jersey, opposed the RNC earlier this month for passing a resolution at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City that censured Cheney and Kinzinger for their roles on the House select committee.
“They invited me to speak after what happened at the RNC and I’m happy to do it,” Palatucci said in an interview. “It’s important to have these conversations out in the open.”
Are these people delusional? Even those Republicans predisposed to vote for someone besides Donald Trump for president would be unwilling to blow up the party for … who? Liz Cheney? Larry Hogan? Not very likely.
All these anti-Trump Republicans are doing is assuring another Democratic win in 2024. And if they haven’t been disabused of the notion that Biden is some kind of “moderate,” they must have fallen asleep over the last year. Biden is a full-throated radical left-wing nut, and another four years with him or some other radical Democrat as president wouldn’t just “transform” America. It would destroy it.
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