Factz

The End of Trump? Murdoch and Other Donors Pull the MAGA Plug, and GOP May Follow

When Donald Trump went into the 2022 midterm elections, he was flying high and thought he was on top of the GOP.

Then the midterm losses rolled in. Instead of a massive red wave like the former POTUS promised, there was but a trickle. And the one problem with making yourself the face of a cause is that when it fails, you become the face of failure.

Now, Trump finds himself beset by woes from all sides as donors and influential people in the GOP start back away from him.

Here’s a quick look at all the people who are pulling the MAGA plug and looking for new blood:

  • Rupert Murdoch: The media magnate behind many Republican successes has soured on Trump majorly over the last year. He has called Trump “a political loser” and won’t back another run. In fact, during Trump’s speech announcing his plan to run for President (for a third time) this week from Mar-a-Lago, Murdoch-owned Fox cut away before his speech was complete. The audience was bored, the audience at home was tuning out, and Murdoch was done giving him on-air time. Across Murdoch-owned media outlets, Trump was blasted as a loser.
  • Chris Christie: A former Trump advisor and confidante of the FPOTUS blasted Trump at an annual meeting of Republican governors, blaming him for pulling the party down over three elections.
  • Mike Pence: Finally fed up from holding his silence about a former colleague who actively cheered on violent mobs who wanted to hang him, Pence finally admitted to more emotion than anyone has seen from the former VP – saying he was “angered” by his running mate.
  • Ronald Lauder: A once-Trump ally and billionaire GOP megadonor, Lauder has said that he won’t back Trump’s run in 2024. Lauder has known Trump since college, and they’ve been close for years.
  • Stephen Schwarzman: Blackstone CEO and GOP donor, who was one of Trump’s greatest donors in 2020, won’t back Trump in 2024 either, saying it’s time for new leadership.
  • Ivanka Trump: Perhaps the most damning blow comes from his own blood. Trump’s daughter was a central figure in his first White House tenure, always by his side and in his ear. But Ivanka says she won’t be involved in politics again and didn’t even attend her father’s announcement this week. Neither did her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also highly involved in Trump’s White House.

It’s time for Trump to face the numbers, and the numbers don’t look good. He’s not the kind of candidate who can run a grassroots campaign – he needs his billionaire buds to get his candidacy off the ground.

That’s not to say he can’t take the GOP spot in 2024. People have held their noses and voted for him before. Everyone listed above may well choose Trump over four more years of any Democrat.

But they have a chance to put a better, less controversial, and more capable Republican ahead of him back in 2024, and they all seem keen to do exactly that.

All of this, of course, relies on the premise that Trump doesn’t go to prison between now and 2024. It’s not a bet most people would take.



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