Tag: south carolina

Haley challenges Trump on her home turf in South Carolina as the Republican primary looms

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With two weeks to go before the South Carolina Republican primary, Nikki Haley is trying to challenge Donald Trump on her home turf while the former President tries to quash his last major rival for the nomination.

Mr. Trump, turning his campaign focus to the southern state days after an easy victory in Nevada, revved up a huge crowd of supporters at a Saturday afternoon rally in Conway, near Myrtle Beach, by touting his time in office, repeating his false claims that the 2020 election he lost was rigged, maligning a news media he sees as biased against him and lobbing attacks on Haley and President Joe Biden.

In his rally speech, Mr. Trump insulted Ms. Haley by using his derisive nickname for her, “Birdbrain,” and lavished praise on South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who endorsed him early. Mr. Trump claimed that he selected Ms. Haley to serve as his ambassador to the United Nations in 2017 and represent America on the world stage only because he was motivated to make McMaster — her second-in-command — the governor of South Carolina.


Also read: Trump deploys his playbook against women who bother him

“She did a job. She was fine. She was OK. But I didn’t put her there because I wanted her there at the United Nations,” he said. “I wanted to take your lieutenant governor, who is right here, and make him governor.”

“I wanted him because I felt he deserved it,” Mr. Trump added

Mr. Trump, who has long been the front-runner in the GOP presidential race, won three states in a row and is looking to use South Carolina’s Feb. 24 primary to close out Haley’s chances and turn his focus fully on an expected rematch with Biden in the general election.

Ms. Haley skipped the Nevada caucuses, condemning the contest as rigged for Mr. Trump, and has instead focused on South Carolina, kicking off a two-week bus tour across the state where she served as governor from 2011 to 2017.

Speaking to about a couple hundred people gathered outside a historic opera house in Newberry, Ms. Haley on Saturday portrayed Mr. Trump as an erratic and self-absorbed figure not focused on the American people.

She pointed to the way he flexed his influence over the Republican Party this past week, successfully pressuring GOP lawmakers in Washington to reject a bipartisan border security deal and publicly pressed Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel to consider leaving her job.

“What is happening?” Ms. Haley said. “On that day of all those losses, he had his fingerprints all over it,” she added.

Ms. Haley reprised her questions of Mr. Trump’s mental fitness, an attack she has sharpened since a Jan. 19 speech in which he repeatedly confused her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Haley, 52, has called throughout her campaign for mental competency tests for politicians, a way to contrast with 77-year-old Trump and 81-year-old Biden.


Editorial | Narrowing field: On 2024 U.S. presidential election’s Republican primaries race

“Why do we have to have someone in their 80s run for office?” she asked. “Why can’t they let go of their power?”

A person in the crowd shouted out: “Because they’re grumpy old men!”

“They are grumpy old men,” Ms. Haley said.

Ms. Haley continued the argument when speaking to reporters afterward, citing a report released Thursday by the special counsel investigating Mr. Biden’s possession of classified documents. The report described Biden’s memory as “poor.”

“American can do better than two 80-year-olds for president,” Ms. Haley said.

Bob Pollard, a retired firefighter, said he cannot support Trump because “he’s a maniac,” adding that Mr. Trump’s campaign, in which he speaks frequently of “retribution” and his personal grievances, has “turned into a personal vendetta.”

Harlie O’Connell, a longtime South Carolina resident who backs Ms. Haley, said she plans to support the eventual GOP nominee but prefers it is someone younger.

“It’s just time for some fresh blood,” O’Connell said.

Her husband, Mike O’Connell, drew a contrast between the candidates’ approach to foreign policy and said he wants the U.S. to continue assisting Ukraine in its war with Russia, as Haley has pledged.

“We need to encourage friendships and not discourage them,” he said of international relations.

Mr. Trump, in his remarks and a social media post on Saturday, criticized foreign aid generally and a plan in Congress to provide nearly $100 billion in aid for Ukraine and Israel. He also repeated his praise for foreign strongmen, calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “very smart, very sharp,” describing Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as ”one of the toughest guys,” and saying Chinese President Xi Jinping is smart because he ”controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.”

In one very personal attack, Mr. Trump repeatedly questioned why Ms. Haley’s husband Michael Haley, who is deployed on a yearlong stint in Africa with the South Carolina Army National Guard, hasn’t been on the campaign trail. Mr. Trump, whose own wife, Melania Trump, has not joined him as he campaigns, asked: “What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone. He knew. He knew.”

Ms. Haley responded sharply in a post on X, saying: “Michael is deployed serving our country, something you know nothing about. Someone who continually disrespects the sacrifices of military families has no business being commander in chief.”

Mr. Trump also ramped up his attacks on the media, maligning the press at least a half-dozen times, with the crowd registering their agreement with boos.

He wrapped up with an at times apocalyptic vision of the country, listing ills from dirty, crowded airports to looming nuclear war and, if he loses the election, predicting the stock market would crash like it did in 1929, touching off the Great Depression. He referred to his supporters who were prosecuted for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as “hostages” who have been “unfairly imprisoned for long periods of time.”

He made his extended lament while speaking over an instrumental song that QAnon adherents have claimed as their anthem.

In Conway, people began lining up to see Mr. Trump hours before the doors opened to the arena where he was set to take the stage later.

Organizers set up outside screens for an overflow crowd to watch.

The city sits along the Grand Strand, a broad expanse of South Carolina’s northern coast that is home to Myrtle Beach and Horry County, one of the most reliably conservative spots in the state and a central area of Mr. Trump’s base of support in the state in his past campaigns.

Tim Carter, from nearby Murrells Inlet, said he had backed Mr. Trump since 2016 and would do so again this year.

“We’re here to stand for Mr. Trump, get our economy better, shut our border down, more jobs for our people,” said Carter, a pastor and military veteran who runs an addiction recovery ministry.

Cheryl Savage from Conway, who was waiting on the bleachers to hear from Mr. Trump, said the former president is “here to help us.” Savage said she backed Ms. Haley during her first run for governor in 2010 but now feels she is hurting herself by staying in the race.

“He deserves a second term,” Savage said, of Mr. Trump. “He did a fantastic job for four years.”

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Here’s How Much 2024 Presidential Candidate Tim Scott Is Worth

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Tim Scott’s real estate empire is a speck compared to Donald Trump’s. Given where the South Carolina senator started, that’s still pretty impressive.

Unlike some of his competitors for the presidency, Tim Scott inherited neither a great fortune nor a prominent last name. Instead, he grew up in poverty. Nonetheless, the senator managed to start his own business, build a small real estate portfolio, win elections and become a millionaire—proving that the American Dream is still possible, even for a poor, Black kid from South Carolina.

Scott got his big break in 2010, when he won election to the U.S. House—guaranteeing him a $174,000 annual salary, nearly triple the $60,000 he had paid himself as the owner of an insurance business. He took office in January 2011 and sold his firm for more than $500,000 three months later. Before long, he started writing books, including two alongside former South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, and eventually earned more than $700,000 as an author between 2017 and 2022.

What has Scott done with his money? Worth just over a million dollars today, he completely or partially owns at least five properties: one in D.C. and four in the Palmetto State. That real estate portfolio accounts for the majority of his net worth. He also holds a federal pension that’s worth an estimated $265,000 after 12 years on Capitol Hill. Rounding out his portfolio: a collection of equity holdings, including shares in blue-chip names like Apple, Boeing, Coca-Cola and Target.

It’s a far cry from where he started. Growing up just north of Charleston, South Carolina as the grandson of a cotton picker and son of a single mother, Scott worked at a movie theater and dreamed of becoming a professional football player. But politics also intrigued him, starting with a run for student council in eighth grade and continuing through high school. He was eventually elected student government president, overcoming a more accomplished opponent and what he refers to as his own “impressively prominent” buck teeth.

After graduating, Scott worked 70 hours a week at the movie theater, got braces to fix his front teeth and went off to college, where, thanks to a group called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, “Jesus became everything” to him. His religiosity still shows up today when he delivers scripture-quoting speeches—or even utters his campaign slogan, “Faith in America.” Scott earned a political science degree from Charleston Southern University in 1988.

He started working as a salesman in college and continued after he got his degree, selling increasingly valuable products over time—vacuums, then men’s clothing, then insurance policies. In 1999, at 34 years old, he opened his own Allstate franchise. Shaking off a first week with zero sales, his agency eventually won a Rookie Agency of the Year award for South Carolina. His secret: promising customers a quote within an hour of receiving their request.

Real Estate Riches

After growing up in poverty, Tim Scott acquired his childhood home, in addition to at least four other properties. His mini empire now accounts for the bulk of his million-dollar fortune.

Around this time, he also began selling voters on his ideas. He was first elected to the Charleston County Council in 1995—the first Black Republican elected to any office in South Carolina since Reconstruction. He joined the GOP, he says, because the local Democratic Party told him to “wait my turn and go to the back of the line.”

In the 2000s, Scott began dabbling in South Carolina real estate. Alongside Michael Sally, a realtor who now serves on Hanahan, South Carolina’s city council, he bought two rental properties in 2005, one in Goose Creek and the other in Summerville, for a combined $250,000. The pair barely broke even on the latter, which they sold in 2008, but the Goose Creek house is worth an estimated $270,000 today, more than twice as much as it initially cost, and there is only an estimated $40,000 of debt remaining on the mortgage.

Scott’s political career blossomed just a few years later. He chaired the Charleston County Council in 2007 and 2008, then served two years in the South Carolina House from 2009 to 2011, before making the jump to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2013, he was appointed to a vacant Senate seat by none other than Nikki Haley, then South Carolina’s governor and now a presidential candidate competing against Scott. In just four years, he’d gone from his county council to the U.S. Senate.

Scott, who is not married, ditched his insurance company, freeing him up to focus on his new job—and, eventually, a string of real estate deals. In 2013, he upgraded his personal residence from a 2,300 square foot North Charleston home to a 3,000 square foot Hanahan home, selling the former to longtime aide Joe McKeown. Then in 2017, he upgraded again, paying half a million dollars for 3,400 square feet less than a mile away. Smart move. That home is now worth an estimated $800,000, before subtracting the estimated $440,000 left on the mortgage.

In 2017, Scott also bought a one-bedroom apartment, which he shares with McKeown, just a short walk from the Capitol for $325,000. It still has an estimated $230,000 of debt on it and is worth around $360,000 today. And in 2018, Scott acquired two more rental properties in South Carolina. One he bought with Michael Sally, the realtor and city councilor. The other was his childhood home. Together, the two homes are worth over $400,000 and have an estimated $85,000 of debt on them.

In the last two years, Scott has slowed down his buying spree, instead opting to invest some of his cash in stocks and mutual funds. Some of his investments are in the sorts of companies you might expect a Republican to support, like Palantir Technologies, cofounded by GOP billionaire donor Peter Thiel; and Tesla, the car giant helmed by Elon Musk.

But his most useful asset as a presidential candidate may be his own story, a rags-to-riches tale Scott loves to share with voters. “I am honored to have our stories woven together into the greater story of America,” he wrote in his 2022 memoir. “Though our lives are but a single thread, together we will weave a beautiful tapestry. And I, for one, plan to make my story count!”

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Meet The Republican Who DOESN’T Think Children Should Be Shot At School, Because Yes That Is News

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Republican Rep. Nancy Mace from my home state of South Carolina is mostly terrible, but I’m willing to acknowledge when she’s almost respectable. Yes, I’m generous to a fault.

After a week of regularly scheduled mass shootings, Mace ventured into the mouth of madness itself — “Fox News Sunday” — and suggested that Republicans might need to do more to stop gun violence than offer “thoughts and prayers.”

“Republicans can no longer be silent on this issue,” she said. “And it’s not about the Second Amendment — there are plenty of things that we can be doing besides offering prayers and silence.”

Wow, she sounds so reasonable! It’s like she thought she was on CNN.

PREVIOUSLY:

Civil Rights Hero Nancy Mace Just Wants Jan. 6 Suspects Treated With A Little Compassion, You Know?

Nancy Mace Doesn’t Need Trump, She’s Got Her Trader Joe’s Wine And Her Dignity.

Fully Vaccinated GOP Rep. Nancy Mace Just Pushing Benefits Of ‘Natural Immunity’ From COVID-19

I should stress that Republicans haven’t exactly been silent on gun violence. That would be an improvement. No, last weekend, Republicans flocked to the National Rifle Association’s Legislative (In)Action Forum in Indianapolis, where North Dakota’s sitting Republican Gov. Kristi Noem boasted about her gun-toting not-yet-two-year-old granddaughter.

But Mace did have some good ideas about gun safety like she was some sort of common-sense-talking Democrat:

“Some sort of Amber alert, for example, to let the community know there’s been a shooting,” she said. “Strengthening our background checks is something that the vast amount of Americans support.”

On average, 90 percent of Americans — Republicans and Democrats — support background checks. Heck, more than 80 percent of gun owners support background checks. Unfortunately, these results collide into the Joey Lucas Rule Of Polling: Did you ask how much the voters care about the issue? Republicans know that their gun nut base consider any new regulation a deal breaker. However, the New York swing voters who freaked out over crime and put Republicans in control of the House last year apparently weren’t thinking about the next, inevitable mass shooting. This is why Republicans keep bending the knee to those NRA assholes.

Mace is still a Republican, so she offered the popular right-wing solution of imprisoning our children so that guns can still run free.

“Hardening our schools, churches, and synagogues so that there’s deterrence so that … a potential mass shooter enters a place they know that maybe they’re not gonna make it through because there’s bulletproof doors, bulletproof windows. Those kind of common sense things … “

South Carolina just approved permitless carry of handguns, so who knows who has a gun inside the locked room with the bulletproof doors? But she tried, OK? Just like last week, when Mace suggested that the Biden administration just ignore that right-wing hack Texas judge’s ruling blocking the sale of abortion drug, mifepristone.

“It’s not up to us to decide as legislators or even, you know, as the court system whether this is the right drug to use or not,” she told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “I agree with ignoring it at this point […] this thing should just be thrown out quite frankly.”

Wow, she sounds like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York and Sen. Ron Wyden from Oregon. That was a bolder stance from a South Carolina Republican than her gun position. She’s also openly denounced her state party’s attempt to straight-up execute anyone who tried to have an abortion.

“It is deeply disturbing to me as a woman and as a victim of rape that some in my home state want to give rapists more rights than women who’ve been raped,” Nancy tweeted in March. “And I don’t know why I have to say this, but it isn’t pro life to execute a woman who seeks an abortion after being raped.”

Twitter

When Twitter user Henry #3 Studios dismissed Mace as a “RINO,” she replied, “I’m a RINO for what? Opposing executions for women who seek abortion? That’s what makes me a RINO? Wow.”

The choo-choo train guy might have a tiny point, though. South Carolina Republicans are big on the death penalty. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill in 2021 forcing death row inmates to choose between the electric chair and a firing squad if lethal injection drugs aren’t available. If Republicans truly consider abortion “infanticide,” then it’s not a leap from there to the gallows. Not to say we “told you so” and all, but we really did.

When Twitter user Wendy Nevarez thanked Mace for her stance, she replied, “The crazy thing is, I shouldn’t be lauded for ‘standing up.’ It’s just so strange this is where we are today that standing up means stating the obvious that executing women for abortions is bad and that I’m unique in this regard for saying that out loud. Just [nuts emoji].”

Mace also agreed with Twitter user Stacy Stateham, who “corrected” Mace’s original tweet to read that it “isn’t pro life to execute a woman who seeks an abortion” (without a qualifier). What’s interesting is that, based on their feeds, Stateham is a self-described “Never Trump Republican” and Nevarez is a liberal Democrat. Mace might resist the RINO label but she’d probably feel more comfortable in the “red dog” conservative Democrat/Bulwark subscriber world. Hey, if we can put up with Kyrsten Sinema for this long, we could probably make room for Nancy Mace.

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Joe Manchin: ‘The Most Popular Republican In The Senate’

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Fresh from his high five-ing trip with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to meet with their real constituents in Davos, Sen. Joe Manchin returned to the Sunday shows to assure all of us that HE is the one who will ruin the Democratic Party’s attempts to make a better tomorrow. So let’s check out Joe Manchin and his amazing terrible friends.

Let’s Negotiate With Economic Terrorists

Appearing on CNN’s “State Of The Union,” Manchin is asked about the White House request for a clean debt ceiling bill. Manchin, ever the helpful stooge, took the “we won’t negotiate with Republicans on the debt ceiling” out of context to talk about a need to negotiate in governing. This accidental or willful misunderstanding did not go unnoticed by the side of the aisle all too willing to remove context so they can extort cuts to programs that help people.

But just in case we thought Manchin is only misguided and truly is a part of the solution, the senator from West Virginia quickly disabused us of that notion. When Dana Bash asked if he would support Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego’s Senate run in Arizona, Manchin made it clear that he would instead support his Senate partner-in-obstruction.

MANCHIN: […] I have been voting for 40 years fairly conservative all the way through, and I think people know I’m in the middle and a centrist. […] I would think that she needs to be supported again, yes, because she brings that independent spirit. […]

Two things:

1) If you have been doing something for 40 years (or as a senator for 12 years) and nothing has drastically improved in your state, you have failed miserably.

2) Contrarianism, in and of itself, is not independence. It’s as dangerous a thing as mistaking speaking without thought, for speaking the truth. Don’t you think?

Speaking of…

Here Comes the “Both Sides” Express!!

Manchin then moved over to NBC’s “Meet The Press” where he proceeded to say stupid things with zero pushback from host Chuck Todd. When commenting on the investigation regarding how Joe Biden handled classifed documents, Manchin expressed what he presumably considered profound insight instead of a lazy false equivalence.

MANCHIN: It’s just hard to believe that in the United States of America we have a former president and current president basically in the same situation.

No, Manchin, they are not in the same situation as it’s been made clear numerous times already.

Manchin is in such a bubble, he made the following statement without seemingly realizing how deluded it is.

Hahahahahahaha! Jesus, Manchin would get crushed in a Democratic (or Republican) primary well before a general election.

Even Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, in the effort to compliment Manchin, basically narrows down why he’s never gonna be President. (Roll Credits)

Mace, herself also tried to “both sides” the classified documents drama, but her effort was so asinine it momentarily woke up the journalist trapped in Chuck Todd’s sunken place.

MACE: Well, I think that’s because there’s no – there’s very little information about Biden. I mean, these documents were hidden for five years. We have very little information, whereas with the former president, everybody knows that those documents existed. They knew where they were. They knew where they were located. […] There was information that was presented to the public about —

TODD: Let me stop you there. We didn’t know where they were located.

MACE: – the number of documents, for example.

TODD: They defied a subpoena, it took a search warrant.

MACE: Well, the FBI and the DOJ —

TODD: In fairness, they didn’t know.

Mace also tried to downplay the possibility of a government shutdown and an economic default if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.

MACE: […] But, you know, this happened under the previous administration. The government was shut down for 35 days. There was a stalemate. But people still got paid. Accounts still got filled up. And the sky didn’t fall. […]

Nothing too bad happened except a threatened downgrade on our credit and an increase in the debt. Totally great, Mace.

On CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Republican Rep. Mike Turner from Ohio tried to “both sides” an insurrection when asked why Republicans seated 19 election deniers on the Oversight Committee.

Remind us again, when was the Democratic insurrection? We must have memory-holed and lost all the footage of liberals marching through the Capitol with coexist flags and screaming in the Senate chambers in Kitara Ravache garb to make John Kerry president.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Republican Rep. Michael McCaul from Texas also tried to assure us like a common Susan Collins that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had learned her lesson and would grow into her office.

Who among us has not radically matured from a childlike 44-year-old to a fully grown 49-year-old adult?

But … But … Chicago!

Appearing on CNN’s “State Of The Union,” McCaul tried to downplay the need for gun reforms in the wake of another mass shooting by once again invoking Chicago gun violence. Thankfully, Bash pointed out the patchwork of gun laws in the US and that most of the guns in Chicago come from neighboring states with lax gun laws like Mike Pence’s Indiana.

Some dog whistles will never die.

Have a week.



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