JF in the News: Conservative Media Figures ‘Sick of Having to Defend’ Trump, Ready to Move On
Some conservative voices and donors are looking to move beyond former President Donald Trump in the wake of the FBI’s August raid on Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, viewing it as the latest controversy to distract from making the case against President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
The New York Post argued in a recent editorial that focusing on Trump rather than the Democrats would hurt Republicans in the midterm elections. His rebound in 2024 polls of GOP primary voters could do the same in two years.
The shift has drawn pushback from supporters who say Republicans trying to steer the party in a new direction fail to understand the former president’s appeal.
“This is the new version of the 2014 Never Trump activists,” said conservative radio host John Fredericks of Republicans looking to turn the page on the former president. “We’ve got billionaires meeting with [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis to give him money to stop Trump.”
He said Wall Street’s “gangster banksters” don’t understand Trump’s movement.
“They don’t understand that getting out of these foreign wars, and getting back to caring for our own people, working class Americans, are what matters,” he said. “They want to get back to the days where they can argue about what percentage a tax cut should be for somebody making over $150,000.”
Fredericks continued: “Trump’s going to win. Why? Because he doesn’t talk to Wall Street hedge fund managers with billion-dollar PACs. He talks to the guy punching a clock.”
Trump faces headwinds on that path, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll published on Thursday.
While 68% of voters said the country was headed in the wrong direction and listed the economy and inflation among their top concerns, areas they said Republicans were better equipped to handle, they remain disinclined toward a second Trump term.
If the 2024 election were held today with Biden and Trump as candidates, voters would reelect Biden with 50% of the vote, compared to 44% for Trump, according to the poll.
The nationwide survey of 1,313 registered voters was conducted Aug. 17-25.
Read the full article from The Washington Examiner.
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