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National News
Trump personally begged MAGA ally not to primary GOP lawmaker — but failed
President Donald Trump failed to keep a Republican primary clear for one of his MAGA allies in his home state of New York.
The president personally called attorney Bruce Blakeman, the county executive for Nassau County, to persuade him not to run in the GOP gubernatorial primary against Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), saying polling indicated she was the favorite to face off against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, but he entered the race anyway, reported New York Magazine.
“He’s great, and she’s great,” Trump said after Blakeman announced his candidacy. “They’re both great people.”
However, sources told the magazine that Trump believes Blakeman will lose the primary but doesn't want to publicly come out against him, and New York Republicans say the situation reminds them of the 2022 GOP primary, when Lee Zeldin had to spend much of his campaign money to win a fairly uncompetitive race before losing that November.
“He ran a hell of a race against Kathy Hochul, as close as anyone’s come in a generation,” said one New York Republican operative. “Can we say for sure that, if not for the primary, he wins? No, we can’t say that, but boy, he’d have had a better shot.”
Blakeman may not appear on the ballot unless he wins the support of 25 percent of attendees at the party’s February convention, where Stefanik will likely have many allies, or obtains 15,000 valid signatures from registered Republicans across the state.
National News
Pete Hegseth’s ‘worn out’ MAGA excuse is running out of steam: ex-White House insider
Pete Hegseth’s reliance on using a Donald Trump deflection as allegations of incompetence, criminality and Pentagon infighting continue to grow is starting to wear thin, according to one former Trump White House insider.
The embattled Secretary of Defense is fighting a war on two fronts this week as he fends off accusations of war crimes over the killing of two alleged drug boat survivors who were reportedly clinging to their boat after a U.S. military attack.
At the same time, a damning report from the Pentagon Inspector General (IG) stated that the Pentagon chief violated protocols with his use of the Signal app, which endangered U.S. troops during an assault on Houthi rebels.
According to a report from Jack Detsh of Politico, in order to fend off bad press and investigations into his conduct, the former Fox News personality has been taking a page out of Trump’s MAGA playbook, by criticizing the messenger and not addressing the issues head-on.
As Detch wrote, Hegseth’s strategy can be summed up as, “Attack your enemies, revamp your story and never say you got it wrong.”
Add to that, Hegseth has been quick to fall back on calling anything that portrays him in a bad light as “fake news.”
As the report notes, that may work for Trump, but it’s being overused by the Pentagon chief, who has already has a trust deficit with many less-than-supportive Republican lawmakers.
According to a former senior Trump adviser, “There’s only so many times that you can stand next to the president and label everything as fake news and deny everything. It’s worn out.”
The same official also claimed the strategy doesn’t work for the defense secretary because of his reputation.
“When he takes this approach of, ‘this is fake news,’ and then hits back with some type of a troll…that only reinforces his biggest liability, which is that he’s unqualified for the job,” they explained. “That just reinforces that he’s not serious.”
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