A federal banking regulator has concluded that America’s largest banks restricted and closed accounts for MAGA merchants, pro-life causes, and Christian organizations during the Biden years, hiding behind the vague excuse of “reputation risk.”

The OCC’s report, Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans, found that all nine of the biggest national banks it supervises, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO, maintained policies between 2020 –  September 2025 that disadvantaged customers on those grounds.

The review examined nearly 100,000 complaints from people who said they had been cut off, along with roughly 50,000 documents totaling about 420,000 pages of bank records.

Under the Biden administration the banks took a page from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s playbook. They adopted the SPLC’s own categorizations of groups and applied those same labels as grounds to deny service, as reported by the New York Post.

These commitments did not appear out of nowhere. Multiple documented sources of incentive and expectation lined up to steer the banks into the same set of decisions.

In early 2021, John Kerry, then the Biden administration’s climate envoy, privately pressed major U.S. banks to announce climate-finance commitments ahead of the administration’s Earth Day summit, using personal relationships with executives at institutions including Bank of America.

By May 2021 the White House issued an executive order on climate-related financial risk that directed Treasury and the Financial Stability Oversight Council to assess and address those risks. The OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve followed with principles for large banks on managing climate-related financial risks, covering governance, strategic planning, and scenario analysis. Large asset managers, led by BlackRock, publicly elevated ESG and climate expectations, while major banks joined the UN-convened Net-Zero Banking Alliance and set 2050 net-zero targets covering their lending and investment portfolios.

Once those broad stakeholder frameworks existed, external lists and advocacy opinions, including the SPLC’s public categorizations, could be, and in the documented cases were, treated as decision-relevant inputs. The same structure that absorbed the climate and equity priorities also became available for other contested social judgments.

Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould called the evidence irrefutable. The largest banks denied, debanked, and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses. Fair access, he said, is not a mantra; it is a mandate. The Trump Administration is ending the weaponization of finance.

The same institutions that rushed in 2020 to embrace the Black Lives Matter narrative issued public statements condemning America as systemically racist. JPMorgan Chase announced a $30 billion commitment and Bank of America pledged $1 billion for racial equity and racial equality in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the riots that followed.

Those same banks later applied restrictive standards to MAGA merchants, Christian nonprofits, and pro-life groups. People targeted included those whose positions on LGBTQ issues and traditional family values conflicted with the banks’ preferred stance on the left.

JPMorgan Chase’s WePay unit closed accounts for merchants selling MAGA and Trump merchandise after flagging terms like “MAGA” and “America First.” Religious nonprofits were shut down or denied credit after being tagged as “extremist hate groups” by the SPLC. Firearms, oil and gas, coal, and detention-facility clients faced categorical restrictions, with at least one bank noting greater supervisory pressure under the Biden administration to move away from the firearms industry.

The practices were widespread and subjective, often leaving customers with vague notices and no clear recourse. After President Trump’s August 2025 executive order directed regulators to end politicized debanking, the banks said they had revised their policies. The OCC concluded those changes have not gone far enough and that no bank has fully and publicly acknowledged what it did.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has since opened its own investigation, with Acting Director Mark Paoletta calling the singling out of consumers whose views did not align with the Biden administration or its allies, and industries disfavored by the Left, “appalling.” He said the tactics were “thuggish” and “have no place in America.”

The discrimination was real and it was disgusting. Most Americans knew it was happening and had no way to stop it.

What remains unexplained is why the banks treated the Southern Poverty Law Center’s discriminatory designations as decision-relevant, and how they all did it around the same time. In April 2026 the organization itself was indicted on federal charges  including conspiracy to commit money laundering, after prosecutors alleged it secretly funneled millions in donor funds to informants inside extremist groups.

The SPLC has also faced years of internal allegations of racism and sexism from its own staff. We are expected to believe that there was no concerted effort or group coordination behind any of this. The documented pattern says otherwise.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, while living in one of the freest countries in the world, has publicly condemned America as a country driven by colonization and oppression. Her on-the-record narrative has long featured ugly, anti-American rhetoric and open hostility toward the United States, along with inconsistencies that recent federal action has brought back into focus.

She has described American institutions as “systems of oppression” in terms that now read less as ordinary critique and more as an echo of the authoritarian regime her father served. He was a colonel in Somalia during two decades of rule marked by widespread opression.

This anti-American posture has become part of her brand. Omar has spent years at the podium leveling aggressive, reckless, unsubstantiated, and inflammatory accusations against the United States and its citizens, the country that granted her family refugee status. At the same time, the emerging evidence indicates that her own family served a regime that killed as many as 200,000 people it oppressed.

Omar has claimed to be a refugee of war-torn Somalia, but this week a court-authorized warrant amplified just how hypocritical her claims and actions really are.

Recent reporting indicates that the warrant itself was driven by information recovered from her sister’s phone. Investigators seized the phone of Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, earlier in 2026. Family text messages on that phone contained information that was used to persuade a federal judge to authorize the October 12 search warrant for Omar’s Washington, D.C., home. The messages are part of a broader criminal investigation into whether Omar and her relatives lied or omitted crucial information on immigration paperwork, including questions around her father’s status and related claims.

Sources say the investigation centers on whether Omar or her family made false statements on refugee or naturalization paperwork decades ago. If proven, the administration could pursue denaturalization and deportation.

Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, who lives in Kenya and recently published a memoir about the family’s journey to the United States, skipped a scheduled book-tour event in Rochester, Minnesota, on Thursday, citing a “family emergency” amid the fallout from the raid and her own subpoena.

The full extent of those inconsistencies came into focus on October 12, 2026, when Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant at her Washington, D.C., home and seized her cellphone, laptop, passport, notebooks, and other items. The warrant is part of a multiyear federal criminal investigation into whether she or her father obtained citizenship through material misrepresentations, including her age and his military service under Barre. More than a dozen grand jury subpoenas have already been issued, including to family members.

Reporting based on people familiar with the investigation indicates the current probe is centered on the family’s naturalization paperwork and Omar’s age at the time of her father’s citizenship, not the long-standing and time-barred marriage-fraud allegation.

The fact is, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s father was tied to a dictatorship that carried out genocide, and she more than likely does not legally belong in the United States.

Her late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, was a full colonel in Siad Barre’s Somali National Army and remained loyal until the regime collapsed in 1991. He was not a bystander. He was a senior officer in the machine that planned and executed the Isaaq genocide. Historians and former soldiers have described him as part and parcel of those who caused the mayhem, a career officer who stayed until the dictatorship fell and then lied about who he was. Barre’s government is documented as responsible for the Isaaq genocide in northern Somalia, with estimates of up to 200,000 deaths, in which cities were leveled, wells poisoned, and civilians massacred during two decades of oppression under the despot.

Her condemnations of colonization and oppression sit uneasily beside her father’s senior role in a dictatorship that actually carried out those vicious war crimes.

A Somali historian and Oxford researcher, Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, has stated that Mohamed “was never an educator,” “misrepresented himself as a refugee,” and “was part and parcel of those who caused and created the mayhem.” U.S. immigration law bars refugee or asylum status for those who ordered, incited, assisted, or participated in the persecution of others. A high-ranking officer who remained loyal to the end of a genocidal dictatorship meets that description. If those accounts hold, the foundation of the family’s U.S. status is open to question. Omar has never produced a Somali birth certificate.

Searches of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Department of Homeland Security records have returned Certificates of Non-Existence for any naturalization under her father’s name or known variations. Without a valid naturalization by the father, there is no lawful derivative citizenship for the daughter.

After the raid, the DOJ issued more than a dozen subpoenas to Omar and her family.

The reality is that in 2023, the Department of Homeland Security under the Biden administration searched its databases and found no evidence Mr. Mohamed was ever naturalized.  The paperwork simply does not exist. No action was taken.

Instead of pursuing that lead, Biden’s Justice Department focused resources on the Plasmic Echo classified-documents investigation and the Arctic Frost election probe that swept up hundreds of Republicans, along with January 6 cases and other matters involving Trump allies and conservative activists.

That raises an obvious question. Why did the Biden DOJ bury this red flag about Omar?  Her father likely did not qualify for refugee status in the first place. He had served as a senior officer in Somalia’s military under the dictatorship of Siad Barre, the self-proclaimed leader of a powerful Somali clan, during Barre’s long rule in which the despot’s forces flattened land, leveled cities, and massacred civilians.

Additionally, after Omar was elected to Congress, her staff requested  her birth year be changed from 1981 to 1982. Public filings had listed her as born October 4, 1981, which would have made her 18 or 19 in 2000; too old to derive citizenship as a minor through her father, a path available only to those under 18. A 1982 birth year would have made that claim possible.

Even if her father naturalized, Mr. Mohamed would have lied about his military service and possible involvement in war crimes, including genocide, when he applied for legal status in the United States. Omar has said her own citizenship derives from him. That status would be considered improper if he assisted in the persecution carried out under the Barre regime, including the slaughter, collapsing any derivative claim.

Her financial disclosures showed her husband’s businesses jumping from tens of thousands of dollars in 2023 to as high as $30 million in the 2024 filing, then collapsing back to under $100,000 after an April 2026 amendment that blamed unaccounted liabilities. She has repeatedly claimed she is not a millionaire. A separate review by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office is examining the filings.

Omar’s campaign paid Mynett’s firm roughly $3 million during the 2019–2020 cycle. The couple married in March 2020.

Mynett’s later venture, Rose Lake Capital, listed several former Obama administration officials among its officers and advisers, including former Ambassador to China Max Baucus and former Ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli, before those names were removed from the firm’s website.

President Trump told Newsmax that the case is in the hands of the DOJ and that he is not involved, while describing Omar as a troublemaker who hates the country and is very corrupt.

Omar has described the raid as the latest escalation in what she called Trump’s “campaign of political intimidation,” saying he has targeted her for years with “baseless lies.” Her husband has said he has “no concerns.” The court, however, found probable cause

The case is deepening.  Federal agents went dumpster diving for DNA evidence tied to Omar and her family before the raid. The documented record on her birth-year change, her father’s senior role in a regime responsible for large-scale civilian killing, the earlier tip that went nowhere under Biden, and her own statements leave little room for the polished story she has offered. If material misrepresentations are confirmed, denaturalization and removal remain available under existing law.

What this essentially means is that the most anti-American person in Congress, self-hating, was bred in an environment that pursued oppression in Africa against its own people. The irony is that marriage to Mynett does not grant clemency or citizenship.

Did Omar’s father obtain citizenship by lying about who he was, his role in a murderous dictatorship that committed crimes against humanity and slaughtered 200,000 people, or his daughter’s age, potentially collapsing any derivative claim she derived as a minor? Is that even her real name?

The Biden DOJ looked at the red flag and chose to do nothing, leaving the American people at risk. If the evidence ultimately supports that, the remedy under existing law is denaturalization, the same framework Democrats have invoked against others. Selective enforcement is not a principle. It is the opposite of one.

President Donald Trump is taking on animal cruelty. His administration is cracking down on abusive puppy mills, pursuing chronic animal welfare violators, and moving to end cruel and unnecessary animal testing. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has made animal welfare a priority. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is working to end testing on mammals by 2035.

Good. That’s the kind of leadership we’ve come to know from President Trump.

But somebody at USDA apparently didn’t get the memo.

Last December, I warned about a ruthless faction of horse abusers who have spent decades hiding behind lawyers, lobbyists, and political connections while inflicting cruelty on Tennessee Walking Horses. Their racket is called soring. Chemical burns, pressure shoes, chains, and other instruments of pain used to force the grotesque, high-stepping gait known as the “Big Lick.” A torture act masquerading as a sporting event. Now USDA’s own findings should scare the hell out of them.

Following recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, USDA began testing horses’ blood for drugs that could hide pain and make soring harder to detect. The results were staggering. Drugs showed up in nearly 99 percent of blood samples collected at three major Tennessee Walking Horse shows. Sedatives. Numbing agents. Drugs that can mask pain and inflammation. Nearly every sample.

Some were detected at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — the industry’s biggest show, hosted by an organization that has been fighting federal horse protection rules in court. You cannot make this stuff up.

The blood tests don’t prove every horse was abused. But they raise a disturbing question: How can inspectors spot abuse when drugs may be hiding the pain? You’d think USDA would be cracking down. Instead, Washington had already decided to back off.

Earlier this year, USDA announced that even when its inspectors find a horse is sore or breaking federal rules, they won’t alert show officials or take the usual steps to keep that horse out of competition. Why? Because owners need a chance to appeal.

Horse shit. The horses can’t appeal. Of course owners deserve due process, but USDA needs to step up. The Horse Protection Act was passed to keep sore horses out of the ring. That’s only fair to the horses, honest competitors, and the sport itself.

Meanwhile, USDA has delayed plans to replace industry inspectors with independent inspectors and stopped training their replacements. So taxpayers keep funding a federal horse protection program while Washington leaves the industry controlling inspections.

And now another USDA rule is under review. If it weakens the law or keeps the industry policing itself, kill it. No more loopholes disguised as reform. The USDA should not, under any circumstances, undermine the President’s animal welfare agenda.

Who the hell is running this show — USDA or the people it’s supposed to regulate?

And let’s be clear. This fringe faction doesn’t represent America’s horse industry. Responsible horse owners and equine organizations have spent decades fighting this cruelty while a handful of politically connected insiders drag horse sport through the mud. This crowd has badly miscalculated if it thinks lawyers, political connections, and Washington bureaucracy will protect it forever.

President Nixon signed the Horse Protection Act in 1970. The law is already on the books. Taxpayers are already paying for enforcement. Now President Trump and Secretary Rollins have an opportunity to end a disgrace that has plagued American agriculture for generations.

Enough of this charade. End industry-controlled federal inspections. Enforce the damn law. Shut the soring racket down.

Drain the barnyard swamp.

I fully understand that I will be accused of being pro-Russian or worse by the neocons and Globalists for taking this view.

I’ve been watching what’s happening with Ukraine, and I want to talk straight with you about why it’s time—past time—for the United States to cut off the endless aid pipeline to Ukraine and stop propping up President Zelenskyy.

I fully understand that I will be accused of being pro-Russian or worse by the neocons and Globalists for taking this view; absurd since I had members of my own family mowed down by Russian tanks in Budapest in 1956 and Robert Mueller’s witch hunt turned up no Russian Collusion by me or anyone else in Donald Trump’s 2016 Campaign, the continued lies of Adam Schiff and his media cabal notwithstanding. Those interested in the falsity of Mueller’s bogus case against me can go here.

First the history of this war: After Russia agreed to the reunification of East and West Germany, the US agreed in both the Budapest Memorandum and the Minsk Accords not to push Ukraine into NATO, which is to say, not to mount NATO missiles in Ukraine aimed at Russia. Why is this any different than the Russian mounting missiles in Cuba 90 miles from our shores in 1962? Barack Obama gave Russia Crimea. Joe Biden started this war which would never have started had Trump rightfully been re-elected in 2020.

President Trump just tried to do something practical and sensible for American families and for energy markets. He announced an energy ceasefire—effective immediately—so that neither side would keep hitting each other’s energy infrastructure.

That matters here at home. High diesel and fuel prices hit truckers, farmers, families at the pump, and manufacturers. Trump’s been clear: Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have been driving up those costs, and he even worked a deal to get more diesel flowing into global markets. The goal was simple: stop the mutual destruction of energy assets, lower prices, and create space for real negotiations to end this war.

What happened? Within hours and days, the ceasefire was treated as optional. Reports came in of continued strikes on energy targets. Zelensky publicly said Ukraine had paused, then declared “we’re done” and resumed attacks on Russian refineries—hitting places like the Ryazan facility and others. He framed it as a response to Russian actions, and Trump himself noted there have been violations on both sides. But here’s the bottom line for Americans: Ukraine is not treating this as a binding commitment when it conflicts with its own strategy of trying to degrade Russian oil revenue.

That strategy may make sense from Kyiv’s perspective in a long war of attrition, but it directly conflicts with the energy stability Trump is trying to deliver for the United States and the world. When a partner ignores or quickly walks away from a ceasefire the U.S. President announces, that partner is telling us the relationship is transactional and one-way. Today Zelensky openly mocks Trump. We should take the hint.

This is not an isolated incident.

For years, the pattern has been the same: massive American support, escalating demands, and limited progress toward an end to the fighting. The war is now well into its fifth year. Every winter brings more strikes on power plants and heating infrastructure. Every summer and fall brings more long-range drone and missile exchanges. American taxpayers have been asked to underwrite this indefinitely while Europe talks a good game and still relies heavily on U.S. systems and intelligence.

Let’s talk numbers, because numbers don’t lie. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the United States has appropriated and committed enormous sums related to Ukraine and the region. Official oversight figures put total U.S. spending related to the war response in the range of roughly $180–195 billion when you include supplemental appropriations, replenishment of our own stocks, economic support, humanitarian aid, and associated costs. Security assistance alone—drawdowns from U.S. inventories, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, and related financing—has exceeded $68 billion in committed defense articles and services through mid-2026, according to the Special Inspector General. Broader trackers from places like the Kiel Institute and others have put cumulative U.S. bilateral commitments in the $100–135+ billion range depending on exactly what is counted (military, financial, and humanitarian).

That’s not abstract. That’s money that could have gone to our own border, our own military readiness, infrastructure, debt reduction, or tax relief for American workers. Much of the equipment came out of U.S. stocks that then had to be replaced—sometimes at higher cost. Economic and budget support helped keep the Ukrainian government functioning, paying salaries and pensions while the war ground on. There has been no major new large-scale U.S. aid package since the big supplemental in April 2024. Under the current administration, the flow has slowed dramatically, and Europe has been forced to step up more. That’s the right direction, but it doesn’t erase what has already been spent or the open-ended commitment some still want to maintain.

And then there’s the corruption question—something that never fully goes away when you’re talking about large-scale American aid to Ukraine.

Start with our own side. In early 2024, the Pentagon’s Inspector General reported that the Defense Department had failed to properly track more than $1 billion in sensitive equipment sent to Ukraine—Javelin and Stinger missiles, night-vision devices, certain drones, and other items that by law require enhanced end-use monitoring. As of mid-2023, roughly 59 percent of the value of those high-risk items was still “delinquent” in the inventory systems. The report didn’t claim widespread theft, but it documented serious accountability gaps in a wartime environment. That’s American gear and American money with incomplete visibility.

On the Ukrainian side, the problems are more concrete. Classified government audits by Ukraine’s State Audit Service and the Defense Ministry’s own internal auditors—covering 2024 and 2025 and reported by The New York Times in September 2026—found that Ukraine lost about $1.2 billion in 2024 alone to fraud, waste, and mismanagement in defense procurement. Seven of the top ten military contractors kept winning new business even though they had open criminal investigations for fraud, had failed to deliver on earlier contracts, or had executives arrested or out on bail. One company was awarded a major mortar contract worth hundreds of millions while its director was already under investigation and out on bail; that same plant later supplied hundreds of thousands of defective mortar rounds. Auditors also flagged companies that never fulfilled a single prior contract yet received new ones, cases of rejecting lower bids and overpaying by roughly $126 million, heavy use of intermediaries who added markups, and disputed advance payments in the tens or hundreds of millions on deals that collapsed. These are Ukrainian government documents, not Western speculation.

Then there’s the energy sector. Ukraine’s own National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) has documented an alleged roughly $100 million kickback operation inside the state nuclear company Energoatom. Investigators say contractors were required to pay 10 to 15 percent off the top simply to get paid and stay on the supplier list—including on contracts for protective structures meant to shield nuclear facilities from Russian strikes. The alleged organizer is Timur Mindich, a longtime business partner of President Zelenskyy and co-owner of the Kvartal 95 production company that made Zelenskyy famous as an actor. The scheme involved wiretaps, charging documents, and a money-laundering operation; Mindich left the country before charges. The investigation has touched senior officials, led to searches and resignations (including around Zelenskyy’s former chief of staff), and produced charges against former energy and justice ministers and others. NABU is the independent anti-corruption body the United States helped create and train.

None of this is “ancient history.” These are recent audits, Inspector General findings, and active Ukrainian investigations. Corruption concerns in Ukrainian institutions have never fully gone away, and the combination of poor tracking on our end and documented waste and alleged schemes on theirs is a serious problem when American taxpayers are writing the checks.

Supporters of continued aid will say this is about defending democracy, deterring aggression, and protecting the post-Cold War order. Those are serious arguments. But after years of aid, the front lines have not produced a decisive Ukrainian victory. Russia has absorbed sanctions, adapted, and continues to press. Ukraine has suffered terrible losses in manpower and infrastructure. Zelenskyy’s government has postponed elections under martial law which means the U.S. is backing a wartime leadership indefinitely.

When Trump suggested it might be time for Ukraine to consider new leadership more focused on a deal, it was blunt—but it reflected the reality that the current approach is not producing an end to the fighting.Zelensky has no interest in peace.

The energy ceasefire episode crystallizes the problem. Trump tried to de-escalate one of the most economically damaging aspects of the war for American consumers. Ukraine’s response—pausing briefly, then resuming strikes while accusing Russia of non-compliance—shows that Kyiv prioritizes its military strategy over the diplomatic off-ramp the U.S. is offering. Both sides have an interest in hurting the other’s energy sector. But the United States does not have an unlimited interest in funding that cycle. Our primary obligation is to American citizens facing higher fuel costs and a national debt that has already ballooned.

Cutting off further aid and ending open-ended support for Zelenskyy’s government is not “abandoning Ukraine.” It is recognizing limits. Europe has the proximity, the economic interest, and the capacity to take the lead on its own continent. American military stockpiles and intelligence remain valuable, but they should not be an unlimited credit line.

Nor is this about “democracy”. Ukraine has held no elections and freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion are not honored in Ukraine where the largest church in the country is outlawed, priests and pastors jailed along with journalists while newspapers and any media that does not support Zelensky is outlawed.

A policy of endless blank checks has not ended the war; it has prolonged it. A realistic assessment—acknowledging that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia outright with current support levels, that both sides have violated de-escalation attempts, that U.S. taxpayers have already shouldered a historic burden, and that serious accountability and corruption problems persist—points toward winding down the aid and pushing for negotiations that reflect battlefield realities.

President Trump has been consistent that this is not America’s war to fight forever and that deals should put American interests first, including energy prices.

The recent energy ceasefire attempt, the diesel arrangement, and the continued strikes show the gap between announcements and reality on the ground. When a partner repeatedly puts its own maximalist goals ahead of the practical steps the U.S. proposes—and when documented waste, tracking failures, and major corruption investigations surround the use of American support—the responsible response is to stop writing the checks. American security, American energy costs, and American fiscal health come first.

This is a plan to rip up the Constitution.

The radical left is no longer a faction. They are the life blood of the Democratic Party. Zohran Mamdani did not just take City Hall. In 2026 his slate knocked off incumbents and party favorites in races from the top to the bottom of the ticket in New York. DSA ranks in Congress are set to more than double.

House Democrats already whisper about a left-wing group styled after the House Freedom Caucus who could dictate policy for the entire caucus. The Democrat establishment is beholden to them, so they have gone into appeasement mode. They want to be radical enough to survive the next primary and respectable enough to cash the next foundation check. That is the pitiful and unfortunate task that has befallen the Roosevelt Institute.

The Building Up in 2029 report, released over the summer, is a 17-essay collection forming the basis for a broad Democrat coalition organized under far-left principles. The project is part of a “Project 2029”-type effort, “including adapting Donald Trump’s means to progressive ends.” In other words, they have no problem with the supposed “authoritarianism” of President Trump. They just want to be the ones pressing the buttons and shifting the gears of the federal colossus.

In one of the essays, K. Sabeel Rahman, describes how he wants the bureaucracy to be reconstructed. It begins with dismantling the Trump state, meaning the immediate reversal of all of his policy achievements. From there, they will warp institutions beyond repair. Rahman said: “The Supreme Court will have to be reformed, meaning “ court expansion, aggressive ethics requirements, and narrowing the jurisdictional reach” of the Court. This would effectively secure liberal dominance over politics in perpetuity.

Essayist Will Dobbs-Allsopp treats the Senate as a climate defect. The chamber, he says, over-represents fossil-fuel states and “minorities of the American population.” He argues to strip the Senate of power or reapportion its votes. The filibuster is a “counter-majoritarian chokehold.” Climate strategy, he argues, must merge with “fundamental democracy (and Senate) reform.” This would constitute an immense power-grab for dense population centers with the most corrupt governance of anywhere within our nation.

Other policies described in the report include establishing public equity stakes “in the public interest,” using TARP-era government ownership as a model of how industry can be nationalist. Another policy includes a National Investment Authority, including a federal investment institution, a homegrown sovereign wealth fund and a National Infrastructure Bank. States and cities are invited to open “public factories” for energy components. They called to rebuild USAID on steroids tied into financial institutions to more directly fund subversion throughout the world.

Building Up is a theory of permanent power. These are not prudent, good-faith reforms. Court expansion is not ethics reform. It is changing the umpire because the score is wrong. Senate reapportionment is not “democracy.” It is an attempt to unwind the deal small states made to enter the Union. A national investment authority with public voting stock is not a market. It is about making the state the controlling shareholder. A tax credit can be cut. A packed Court, a rewritten Senate, a sovereign investment vehicle, and a civil service hired for a generation of planning cannot.

The Roosevelt Institute hopes their manifesto will be enough to fend off the Radical Left. It is the left establishment bankrolled by corporate money led by former Biden officials. Donors and partners have included Ford, Hewlett, MacArthur and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Rising left-wing activists already treat that class as the enemy. A report that brags about borrowing Trump’s means will look, to them, like an establishment-backed triangulation attempt with an occasional crumb thrown their way. Why settle for crumbs when they are on the cusp of getting the whole loaf?

The establishment wrote this to look serious and keep the coalition intact. Their problem is their base is insatiable. Yesterday’s extremist take quickly becomes today’s moderate position. Mamdani’s allies just proved they can fire the old guard in safe seats. A think-tank menu that stops short of what they already say out loud will not quiet them. It will teach them the establishment is weak and can be bent to their will.

There is no remaining moderate faction large enough to stop that slide. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former National Security Adviser Tulsi Gabbard did not “become Republicans” for a lark. They left a party that no longer had a home for them. U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman is one of the last elected Democrats willing to deviate from the leftist-dictated script, and that has put him on the chopping block.

For many years it was a truism of sorts to call the two parties—Republican and Democrat—two wings of the same bird of prey. But after the rise of President Trump and the hostile socialist takeover of the Democrats, the two major parties are now offering diametrically opposed visions for what will constitute America’s future. The Republican Party is often weak, sloppy, and pitifully caters to the special interests it should be locking horns against. But we can root out this culture of failure in Republican primaries, which has already proven to be effective in many cases.

The project in Building Up in 2029 is in a different category altogether. This is a plan to rip up the Constitution, undo checks and balances and devastate the Republic as we know it. And that is the moderate proposal. What the Democrats will be unleashing will likely be far worse. No matter how frustrating the GOP may be, the alternative is to roll over as the worst atrocities of mankind are repeated on our shores. To do so is to spit on the graves of our historic ancestors. We have no choice but to crush the Democrats and thwart the leftist cancer before it metastasizes within our body politic.

When it comes to corruption in the State of Florida, there is no criminal more guilty than Governor Ron DeSantis, and his wife Casey DeSantis, who stole $10 Million from the poorest of Floridians.

The Hope Florida scandal that has enveloped the DeSantis’ throughout the last year has reached a new fevered pitch as CBS News Miami has leaked the entire grand jury presentment against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife, First Lady Casey DeSantis.

The leaks reveal damning evidence that the grand jury found evidence of severe, and even potentially criminal conduct by the First Family as it pertains to the Centene settlement, in which their appointed officials illegally steered $10 Million into Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida charity.

Now the DeSantis’ are trying to cover up the information by suing those attempting to expose this information before the midterm elections.

We will examine the depth of the DeSantis’ treachery as it pertains to their theft of $10 Million later within the article, but first, let’s look at DeSantis’ own statements on the matter.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey DeSantis have been clear over the last year. Each time the couple has been asked publicly about the ‘Hope Florida’ scandal, in which DeSantis and his wife skimmed $10 Million from taxpayers through their own appointed officials and a Medicaid settlement, they have vehemently denied wrongdoing.

At times, the Governor has even gone as far as to attack those who dare to ask questions about the scandal. During a press conference in February, DeSantis attacked a reporter for asking questions about the allegations that he and his wife had taken $10 Million from the poorest Floridians, handing it to Casey DeSantis’ own Hope Florida charity, in a settlement with Centene.

DeSantis scolded the reporter, “Political lies!” he said.

“We said at the beginning. It was a political op, it was a hoax, and we’re at this point, clearly that was true. Our agencies acted in ways that were legally sound and appropriate. That’s the fact. The fact that you wouldn’t have even opened one with DOJ, there was no basis to even do it, I think that’s really telling. It was all a political scam. There was a political agenda,” DeSantis added.

Thanks to CBS News Miami, we now know just how much Ron DeSantis was really lying about the Hope Florida scandal, and the depths to which he and his wife sunk in order to divert money from needy Floridians to their own political causes. We also have new information on how the scam played out, who helped orchestrate the theft, and who allowed it to happen.

Not only did Ron DeSantis orchestrate a criminal scheme to swindle poor Floridians out of money for their healthcare. He also lied about it, in public, for over a year. Now, because of the leaks, his lies have been exposed.

What Is The Hope Florida Scandal?

Casey DeSantis’ “Hope Florida” charity received a $10 million payout as part of a 2022 settlement with the state’s largest Medicaid provider at the behest of Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) – in a clear conflict of interest.

The money was moved into Hope Florida from the AHCA as part of a $67 million settlement between the AHCA and Medicaid provider Centene regarding alleged overpayments made to pharmacy benefit managers.

$57 million of this settlement money went back to the taxpayers while $10 million went to Casey DeSantis’ nonprofit, as compelled by the AHCA in the documentation. The AHCA denies that this payout involved “the expenditure of state funds” in a peculiar and deceptive claim designed to dispel legitimate inquiry into the developing scandal.

“There was no civil action and this settlement did not require the expenditure of state funds, so no notice was required,” AHCA Deputy Chief of Staff Mallory McManus said in an email to Politico. “This was a pre-suit settlement in AHCA’s favor that was directed, in part, to the direct support organization which serves a population of individuals traditionally served by AHCA.”

McManus is a DeSantis hack using weasel words to obfuscate the facts of the matter. The settlement money was clearly meant to go to the people, and yet it ended up in the coffers of Hope Florida. If the AHCA thought this money should be dispersed to nonprofits, why was this money not dispersed to different public health nonprofits? Why was it not evenly distributed between different nonprofits engaged in this sort of work? The answer, of course, is due to political connections.

The state has been tight-lipped about divulging any further details about the settlement and which parties were involved, only adding to the intrigue and sending signals that the DeSantis family has much to hide. New reports indicate that the $10 million may have been funneled into the coffers of an anti-cannabis campaign supported by Hope Florida’s partners at the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

Records show that Hope Florida gave a $5 million grant to the Florida Chamber’s ‘Secure Florida’s Future’ front group and an additional $5 million grant to the ‘Save our Society from Drugs’ organization after receiving the controversial settlement. Both of those organizations then funneled substantial sums of money, close to the amount they received from Hope Florida, to the Keep Florida Clean committee to defeat Amendment 3, a measure to legalize cannabis in Florida, in the 2024 election.

DeSantis even publicly referred to the $10 Million as the ‘cherry on top’ of the deal with Centene.

“When you do settlements, you can try to get as much money as you can, but this was in addition to what they were getting. This is kind of like a cherry on top where they agreed to make an additional contribution, and so we were served well by what ACHA did,” DeSantis said during a news conference.

Grand Jury Finds DeSantis Administration Directly Stole Money From Florida’s Poorest Residents

Lost in the reporting on the Hope Florida scandal is the omission by the grand jury that Ron DeSantis and his thugs stole $10 Million directly from the poorest Floridians, endangering their access the basic healthcare.

Centene’s settlement was based on Medicaid funds, and the grand jury found that all, not some, of the funds negotiated in the $67 Million+ settlement belonged to the defrauded Florida Medicaid recipients.

As stated previously, DeSantis had previously referred to the $10 Million portion pushed to Hope Florida as a ‘cherry on top’ of an overall Medicaid settlement. The court thoroughly debunked this argument, which was presented by several DeSantis officials.

“Hence this money was part of the damages Centene owned to Florida’s taxpayers,” the jury found.

DeSantis Appointee Jason Weida Hid Stolen $10 Million From State Legislature

The jury went further, concluding that the decision to reduce that portion of the settlement to exactly $10 million was done to circumvent a state law requiring any settlements above that threshold be directed to the general revenue fund controlled by state lawmakers.

Not only did DeSantis and his goons steal $10 Million, but they stole the exact amount necessary to evade any accountability in the process.

Once a settlement reaches a certain threshold, just over $10 Million, the state legislature has say over where the funds are diverted. Weida and DeSantis carefully crafted the payment to Hope Florida to evade this law, and ultimately accountability.

The official specifically named in this portion of the grand jury presentment is Jason Weida, former secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration and one of four state officials who signed the settlement.

It also pointed to his decision to reimburse the federal government’s share of recovered Medicaid funds based on the full $67 million settlement.

DeSantis’ Deputy Chief Of Staff Katie Strickland ‘Fails To Remember’ Multiple Meetings With Centene On Settlement

The grand jury made several revelations that implicate Ron DeSantis and Casey DeSantis, as well as many of the officials he has surrounded himself with in the State government. It heard testimony from many DeSantis officials, including Katie Strickland, DeSantis’ Deputy Chief of Staff.

Strickland oversaw the health care agencies working with Casey DeSantis’ Hope Florida initiative, including the Agency for Health Care Administration which negotiated the deal with Centene.

Though Casey DeSantis had no official chief of staff, Strickland effectively served in that role. In 2022, Strickland attended at least three meetings about Centene, including one with the CEO of the company’s Florida subsidiary. She was intricately involved in the negotiations.

The grand jury, however, found Strickland to be completely “uninformative” and “not credible.”

Strickland, who served as DeSantis’ Deputy Chief of Staff, and the person that would be closest to serving as Casey DeSantis’ Chief of Staff, according to the leaked documents refused to reveal basic information about her contacts with Centene.

Why did Strickland refuse to speak on the meetings she had in 2022 with Centene? It seems obvious. With her placement overseeing the AHCA, and directly meeting with Centene multiple times in 2022, she would have been intricately involved in the innerworkings of this deal, yet she ‘couldn’t remember’ enough to provide information.

Grand Jury Wanted Criminal Charges, But ‘Amnesia’ Stood In The Way

Within the leaked resentment it is revealed that the ‘general amnesia’ of DeSantis officials including Strickland, Weida, and others was the only impediment standing in the way of criminal indictments in the Hope Florida scandal.

Isn’t that convenient?

“While we can’t prove who is responsible, we can plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes,” jury members wrote.

In addition to finding the money being used for political purposes, the grand jury also found that Hope Florida ‘mischaracterized’ how it used the diverted money once it was officially received.

It also found a pattern of diverted funds being misappropriated throughout state government, not just as it pertains to this specific settlement with Centene.

The DeSantis administration diverted at least $36.2 million in taxpayer resources originally earmarked for healthcare, child welfare, opioid recovery, and aid to vulnerable Floridians, including children, to fund advertising campaigns against various state wide 2024 ballot measures the Governor opposed.

Critics, including Republican State Rep. Alex Andrade of Pensacola, have alleged rampant corruption, money laundering, and misuse of public funds.

Now let’s take a look at evidence against Hope Florida that was revealed during a Florida Legislature hearing last year.

Florida Legislature Found Ron & Casey’s Hope Florida Failed to File Basic IRS Paperwork

Joshua Hay, the head of the Hope Florida Foundation, testified that the nonprofit, only a few weeks before the hearing, hired accountants to help it. He said the previous accounting of the foundation, which would included the time when the $10 Million settlement was paid by Centene was done by the Florida Department of Children and Families.

“There were lapses in reporting procedures; there are lapses in reporting procedures. And the foundation was not provided with the staffing support necessary to ensure all matters were quickly and appropriately handled,” Hay testified.

Rep. Allison Tant railed against Hope Florida for its failure to obtain basic organization paperwork such as bylaws, saying, “I’m just astonished. I’m astonished that you don’t have bylaws, a budget, meeting minutes.”

Rep. Alex Andrade claimed that he was “stunned” by the organization’s lack of transparency, saying, “I’m more stunned, than anything else, by the responses, the demeanor, the flippancy [toward] the serious questions we have.”

Andrade added, “I have serious concerns about what might be occurring in the post-dating of documentation in the attempt to justify and cover up what actually happened.”

Hope Florida Director Joshua Hay admitted during the Legislture’s hearing that Hope Florida failed to file basic tax documentation, including its IRS 990 form required to legally accept donations. Hay told lawmakers in Tallahassee, “[There was a] misunderstanding on who was responsible for preparing the tax records for the non-profit.”

“In recent weeks, the public reporting has made evident that mistakes were made,” Hay added.

The IRS requires Form 990 to be filed by the 15th day of the 5th month after the organization’s fiscal year ends, and failure to file for three consecutive years can lead to automatic revocation of tax-exempt status.

Considering that Hope Florida has existed since 2021, it would be, under the IRS law, eligible to lose its tax-exempt status for its failure to file.

Hope Florida Doesn’t Even Have Headquarters, State Legislature Finds

It was also revealed in the Florida State legislature hearing that Hope Florida does not have a headquarters or an actual place of operation.

The Hope Florida Foundation was found to lack a dedicated office or building, operating instead in a nebulous capacity without a verifiable headquarters, raising additional questions about the organization’s legitimacy.

Hope Florida Only Gave $500k To Needy Families

Joshua Hay, the Hope Florida Foundation’s chair, testified that the foundation had distributed “north of $10 million” in grants, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel.

However, lawmakers challenged this, noting that campaign finance records and foundation documents showed only about $500,000 in smaller grants to individuals and organizations, excluding the two $5 million grants to Securing Florida’s Future and Save Our Society from Drugs, which totaled $10 million.

Rep. Marie Woodson hammered Hay over this, asking him, “I’m struggling to understand how you can claim such a large amount of grants when the actual impact on Floridians seems so small. Where is the money really going?”

Rep. Andrade stated about the lack of funds distributed to Floridians, “You’re telling us you’ve granted over $10 million, but when we look at the numbers, it’s clear the vast majority went to two questionable groups, not to helping Floridians.”

The poorest of Florida residents were taken advantage of by their Governor, who directly stole $10 Million from them, illegally diverting the money to charity controlled by his wife, who then funneled the money to support political causes back by the Governor.

Despite attempting to portray themselves as helping the needy with Hope Florida, all available evidence on the organization portrays it as nothing more than a front for Ron and Casey to divert millions of taxpayer dollars, and to funnel it to the political causes that matter to them most.

It remains to be seen whether or not the DeSantis’ will ever face justice for their clear criminal conduct. The only reason this grand jury failed to produce a criminal indictment is the ‘general amnesia’ no-doubt coordinated by the DeSantis team heading into the trial.

For Americans, this is a shining example of what Ron DeSantis and his family are capable of doing with access to power. No mother is safe, no child is cared for, and the hard-earned tax dollars that are taken from you, the American people, to be used to care for the sick, and elderly, are nowhere near safe when the DeSantis’ are near.

Though the grand jury found that the funds diverted to Hope Florida were misappropriated for political use, they failed to bring criminal indictments. Will the DeSantis’ skirt accountability forever?

The Republican Party of Florida is threatening criminal prosecution of television stations, the Democratic Party and, by the terms of its own legal theory, anyone who repeats a Leon County grand jury’s finding that high-ranking state officials diverted $10 million in the Hope Florida scandal.

In a lawsuit filed late Friday night and a letter sent the same day to station managers across Central Florida, the party argues that the grand jury’s report and its findings became contraband on Oct. 7, when a state appeals court ordered the report erased. Under the party’s theory, broadcasting the report’s “content, gist, or import” is now a first-degree misdemeanor and criminal contempt of court.

It also requested that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and prosecutors investigate the media stations.

The verified complaint, filed in Highlands County circuit court, asks a judge to issue a temporary restraining order without notice to the other side. It names the Florida Democratic Party, three of four statewide Democratic candidates, and the owners of 11 television stations in the Orlando and Tampa Bay markets, including WFTV, WESH, WKMG, WOFL, WTVT, WFLA, WTSP and WFTS.

The target is a 30-second spot paid for by the Democratic Party and approved by David Jolly for governor, Jose Javier Rodriguez for attorney general, and Annette Taddeo for chief financial officer. The ad says: “A leaked grand jury report found taxpayer money was quietly moved into a dark money political committee that James Uthmeier controlled, not to Florida families. They found $10 million was misappropriated.” It closes with the words “conspiracy, concealment, corruption.”

Uthmeier, the sitting attorney general, is on the Nov. 3 ballot. The Republican Party’s complaint describes him as “the candidate the advertisement targets.”

The suit rests on the First District Court of Appeal’s Oct. 7 opinion, written by Judge Lance Neff, ordering the 116-page presentment expunged “in its entirety.” That ruling, as the Trident has reported, was issued after the only party fighting to make the report public was kept from learning the appeal existed.

Under the Court’s own rules, the ruling is not final until 15 days after it was entered, or until disposition of any motion for rehearing. At the earliest, the ruling would not go into effect until this Friday. When asked whether the lawsuit filed was premature since the ruling is not yet final, Republican Party of Florida chair Evan Power told the Trident “they’re not going to change their minds.”

Meanwhile, the appellate court has ordered State Attorney Jack Campbell to explain why the court should not appoint a special master to investigate how the unredacted grand jury report reached the media and whether the court’s injunction was violated.

The court order also instructed Campbell to demonstrate why he should not be sanctioned for an Aug. 26 email to lawyers for Uthmeier and others suggesting that a clerk of the appeals court or the Leon County Clerk was responsible for the leak, and why he should not be referred to the Florida Bar for discipline. Campbell is required to provide answers under oath within five days.

The Republican Party argues the ruling changed the legal status of the report’s contents. Because the grand jury summarized witness testimony, the party says, anyone who knowingly broadcasts the “content, gist, or import” of that testimony violates section 905.27 of the Florida Statutes. A violation is a first-degree misdemeanor and criminal contempt of court.

“The law then is straightforward,” party lawyer Benjamin Gibson of Shutts & Bowen wrote to station managers on Friday. “Knowingly broadcasting advertisements built on the contents of the confidential Presentment is criminal conduct in Florida.”

Gibson’s letter went further than the lawsuit. It told the stations the party was “referring this matter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and relevant prosecutorial authorities.” Copies went to FDLE Commissioner Larry Keefe, Statewide Prosecutor Brad McVay, and the state attorneys in 11 of Florida’s 20 judicial circuits. McVay works in Uthmeier’s office.

The lawsuit was filed by a different firm, Sasso & Sasso of Maitland.

Now that Ron DeSantis has been caught in this corrupt scheme with Attorney General Uthmeier, they are using the Republican Party of Florida to attempt to silence anybody that dares speak up.

DeSantis’ Betrayal Of President Donald Trump

In addition to being one of the most openly corrupt governors in the United States, Ron DeSantis has also been a treacherous, back-stabbing traitor for his entire political career. DeSantis even betrayed President Donald Trump, the man that made his political career.

In 2018, President Donald Trump’s tweeted endorsement catapulted virtual unknown Ron DeSantis to the Florida Republican gubernatorial nomination over Party favorite agriculture commissioner Adam Putnam, Trump asked Wiles to step in and right what was a rocky general election campaign against Democrat nominee and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, whose career would later crash when he was exposed in a sex and drug scandal.

DeSantis had little money, and was critiqued by Florida political insiders as having little-to-no campaign structure, poor organization, and an overall lack of professionalism. When DeSantis accused his opponent Gillum of wanting to “monkey up” the Florida economy with tax increases, DeSantis’ comments were widely condemned as ‘racist.’

DeSantis was also having trouble raising money against Republican establishment favorite agriculture commissioner Adam Putnam. Multiple respected polls showed that DeSantis’ support languished in single digits.

DeSantis, who had not actually ever endorsed Trump in 2016, and had run for re-election insisting that “just because we are on the same ticket does not mean I support Trump.” DeSantis then cannily emerged as a vocal defender of Trump on the Fox TV and the Conservative talk show circuit in the Russian collusion battle.

Falling back on his experience as a Military prosecutor, DeSantis caught the President’s eye. In the end, however, it was not Ron DeSantis, but Congressman Matt Gaetz who convinced Trump to issue the fateful tweeted endorsement that would propel DeSantis to the Republican Governor’s nomination, and the Governor’s mansion. Gaetz had a longtime grudge against Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam who he felt had slighted him when Gaetz was a State legislature and he approached the Agriculture Commissioner about a constituent matter.

Realizing that the DeSantis campaign would need to be stabilized, President Trump deployed Susie Wiles to take control of the floundering DeSantis campaign.

DeSantis went on to secure a narrow victory in his 2018 election, due entirely to President Donald Trump and Susie Wiles.

Just 5 years later, DeSantis launched his Presidential campaign to run against former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Election. His campaign was a vicious attack on the man that made him.

On May 25th, 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, while speaking with Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, falsely accused President Donald Trump of ‘handing over’ the country to Anthony Fauci. DeSantis told Beck, “I think he did great for three years, but when he turned the country over to Fauci in March of 2020 that destroyed millions of people’s lives.”

Ron DeSantis was lying. HE pushed the vaccines. Ron DeSantis LOCKED DOWN Florida and even pushed for children to receive COVID-19 booster shots.

In late May of that same year, during a radio interview with Matt Murphy on WTN-AM, Desantis attacked President Donald Trump’s stellar record as President, saying, “I don’t know what happened to Donald Trump; this is a different guy today than when he was running in 2015 and 2016 and I think the direction that he’s going with his campaign is the wrong direction.”

In October of 2023, DeSantis claimed that Trump, who appointed three Justices to the Supreme Court that struck down the precedent of Roe v Wade, providing more protections to the unborn than had been afforded since pre-1973, was ‘betraying’ pro-life conservatives.

DeSantis said, “I think all pro-lifers should know that he’s preparing to sell you out,” to Iowa voters ahead of his defeat at the hands of Trump in the state.

The attacks didn’t stop at politics either. DeSantis also made derogatory comments about President Trump’s age, saying in October of 2023, “We don’t need any more presidents that have lost the zip on their fastball.”

During the same speech in which he made the previous statement, DeSantis also accused Trump of ‘energizing Democrats,’ saying, “You could have John Kennedy walk through the door right now and he wouldn’t energize Democrats as much as Donald Trump does.”

In December of 2023, DeSantis falsely accused President Donald Trump of disrespecting members of the military, saying on X, “Trump denigrates military service by claiming it is ‘braver’ that he debated Hillary Clinton than what soldiers endure on the battlefield. Debating isn’t ‘brave’; it’s the bare minimum any candidate should do. Hiding from debates, on the other hand, is an example of cowardice.”

DeSantis’ accusation that Trump is a ‘coward’ is laughable, especially considering that he and his wife stole $10 Million from the poorest Floridians in the Hope Florida scandal we delved into earlier.

Even after he dropped from the race, DeSantis continued to attack Trump. On January 7th, 2024, DeSantis told Face The Nation, “If the election is about Trump and his legal issues, it will be a “really nasty election” and “doesn’t put Republicans in a good position to win.”

Just days later, DeSantis accused Trump of ‘slipping mentally’ once again, saying on Morning Joe, “Clearly Donald Trump is not the same Trump from 2016. When he gets off the teleprompter, there’s a lot of mistakes, a lot of stream of consciousness stuff.”

Ron DeSantis owes his entire career to President Donald Trump, and even after being thoroughly dismantled by Trump in the 2024 Republican Presidential primary, DeSantis refused to endorse the President.

Let’s not forget that DeSantis literally changed Florida law so that he could siphon the hundreds of millions he raised during his 2022 gubernatorial campaign to his presidential campaign.