it's kept the 2024 candidates away, including rhonda sanders, former president mike pence and dave declared many thought to be potential candidates going forward. they decided to go to florida for a fundraiser and it was interesting a lot of the former president waiting to he wasn't invited but call it done. i will be curious once he trait takes the podium if he talks about the potential rival in the race. while he was here, we did hear from former un ambassador nikki haley, 2024 candidate herself. she spoke out on the stage, the audience gave her a perception, standing ovation. some pointing out the crowds are not as large as tonight when trump is in but it's an event seems to be tailored toward the trump audience. so many people said they are solely to go here to see him and speakers wanted to hear from the trump apparatus in campaign but you referenced it here a second ago, this will go well beyond cpac, along bruising primary, the truck will be going to iowa my essentially one more than one week from monday and we know rhonda sanders making a trip to iowa next week as well. arthel: i he

obviously rhonda sanders, as an example. how does this play? >> the state authorities have always had leeway to handle the issue of education, whether or a blue state or red state, that's often how this operates. and clearly voters in florida have been fine, broadly, at least a majority of them who turned out to reelect rhonda sanders in the last midterm. so politically right now rhonda santas is hand and leg of education is not hurting him with florida voters or in the republican primary. what is fascinating is, you take governor desantis's handling of curriculum in schools, and there's a lot of talk about him trying to ban books, et cetera. a lot of the examples that you brought up our things that, in my view, don't actually prove the case. so for instance, there were some examples of math textbooks that the department of florida education department rejected. there are some things that were rejected not for a real. recent statistics, for instance. did you kids about how you measure something like racial bias. i work in the survey research fi

if you're running for president, and obviously rhonda sanders hasn't gotten in yet, but if you're runningyou have to take out donald trump. that's the whole idea. if you're running you think donald trump should not be president. here's an opportunity to do that. i understand that if your congressional republican or you don't want to take that bait, you're going to talk about the da. you're going to talk about the process. you don't want to talk about the substance. what is the sound? like it sounds like what ron desantis does. a person who cheated on his wife when she was pregnant with a adult film star with and paid her hush money. the problem is, again, when you do that you give aid and comfort to democrats. and that is at least in the eyes of the republican a republican party. supporting democrats. if you go after dom democrats, you're helping democrats. you can't do that. it creates this quicksand where you end up being stuck. you can't attack him. you end up defending him. you are not pointing out people don't like him, which, again, is currency, and i are doing is -- and i don't kno

iowa, delivering remarks o what he is calling his america first education policy this is after rhonda sanders made education policy a to agenda item in the state o florida. and something that he also emphasized in visits to iowa and nevada does trump's focus on educatio in iowa. is that a sign that he see desantis as his principa threat in the republican primary? >> you know, not only does donald trump see desantis as the principal threat but i think everybody in the republican party looks at that now that way, you have to se the polling to see tha desantis's distinguished himself as the clear alternative to trump at this point. it is still very early in th process. and that can change. desantis is touring. and maybe he has trouble wit the retail politics once h gets out into other states once people start looking, you know, more on his record education is a big issue her in iowa. the governor can kim reynold pushed her plan for you know basically universal school choice as she calls it and iowa and it helped her wi legislative seats. she was able to get that through, so i think both trump an

one person who doesn't seem to be afraid though, john, is rhonda sanders.weekend he is literally iain donald trump's backyard fundraising in palm beach. i know you have new reporting around his fundraising in general. what can you tell us? >> natasha korecki and i talked to republican sources who were trying to put together some money for ron desantis, and what we heard was there is basically an asking price, if you will, to get ron desantis to come to a fund-raiser to collect money for himself. half 1 million dollars if he's already going to be in town for another event. of course this is not according to a source familiar with his fundraising operations, not a hard ask it's more of a goal. there is a bit of flexibility there. but what is really important about those numbers is that you've got a candidate here, desantis, who is basically which donors come to him and which once he sees. that speaks to the popularity that he has among the republican donor class. >> that's next level. do you think that's because the current republican maga base is not part of

that's the future that rhonda sanders wants for your kids, my kids, and our country. and apparently republicans in the house are more than happy to help him. is the policy for the bulwark, and retired political strategist and both join me now. mona, i don't know where to begin with the rosa parks thing. what are we seeing happen here when you contextualize republicans sort of elevating of this strategy that we see playing out in florida, where they're bifurcated, dissecting, and pushing out things that they don't like? >> there was a school textbook where they just eliminated rosa parks's race from the entire story. >> not a black woman. >> just some woman who was forced to give up her seat. the woman on the bus. that's obviously outrageous. but you know the democrats have a risk, it seems to me, of seeming to fall into a trap that the republicans are setting. and the republican trap is, we want to empower parents. this bill, this federal bill which will not go anywhere because it's not gonna pass the senate, but it basically says parents should know what is being tau

think he's still trying to separate himself from trump at the reality is if you look at what rhonda sanders is doing, he's parroting trump's talking points. he parents every all the actions, the parents all of these initiatives, so he's trump's mini me right. and so i think when it comes down to the voters, i think they're gonna turn around at some point and be like, well, actually, he's he's trump and we're already behind trump, so why not stick with him? um and again like i don't see any differentiating between the two of them. i don't see any actual substantive policy initiatives behind us santas, but unfortunately, if you look at the polling, uh, it's trump into santa's certainly at the top. none of these other people that i think would be more traditional responsible conservatives. that are behind in the polling. but look, this is still trump's party and all of these people are helping him, including my former boss, mike pence, who was out there pushing the this is a political hit job, talking points with the percent potential trump indictment. i mean, that that's absolutely shameful.

what seems to be happening is that rhonda sanders could be sensing that trump is weakened by all of hisal trouble. balls and now is the time to take advantage. florida's governor, taking stronger but still subtle swipes at donald trump, rhonda said in an interview with pierce morgan for his talk show that streams on fox nation had some fun with trump's nicknames for him, rhonda sanctus today and never have the sanctus the sanctimonious to thank your favorite nickname that trump's given you so far. i can't i don't know how to spell the sanctimonious. i don't really know what it means, but i kind of like it's long. it's got a lot of valves. i mean, so we'll go with that. that's fine. you know, you can call me you can call me whatever you want. i mean, just as long as you, you know, also call me a winner. suspended any regulation is also got serious with a jab at the former president when morgen asked him about the differences between him and trump, and obviously, you know, the approach to covid was different. i mean, you know, i would have fired somebody like fauci to the way we run. the

is that just because before people didn't really know much about rhonda sanders.nd they just say they liked him because of the little. they knew about him. and the more they hear about them, the more they don't like him. or how do you read that? look i think some of it is the impact of trump turning his his his training his fire on two santas and this is going to be you know, you poke the bear. the bear is going to poke you back, and this is something that santos is going to have to endure. presidential races are a gauntlet. and you've got to run that gauntlet and part of the gauntlet on the republican side is that but on the other of the other hand, trump training is guns on the santis really signifies the fact that he believes de santis is his principal opponent, and for the half of the republican party that doesn't want trump to be the nominee than the santis looks more and more like the guy they should be with, and trump is certifying him as such, so if he can stand up to the fire of trump, this can actually strengthen him. thanks very much. appreciate it. com

just stay out of the firing line of donald trump and focused again on the policies and not the rhonda sandersjust a little bit in this past week. you know, sort of hint at a strategy that he might take where he was going after the manhattan d. a. alvin bragg just a little bit, but at the same time he kept mentioning this porn star hush money payment to stormy daniels and so on. so he is working. he was working in some digs at trump. the question is, will it work? is it enough? because what the other thing we saw in 2016 is you saw candidates that tried to go full bore. marco rubio didn't work for him. then you saw candidates that try to ignore him, and they were knocked out at the very beginning. and so again, i don't think that anyone , including the santas, who by the way is not very well liked and we don't know how well he's going to be how he's going to do outside of florida. ah the they'd have no idea how to run against somebody like donald trump. but i will tell you this, they could have had a much better opportunity to run against donald trump if the so called leaders of the republican

tapping into people's fatigue of exhaustion with perhaps the former president's administration, but rhonda sanders we've seen this week, especially when he was questioned about the possible indictment of trump and how he said, well, i don't know what it takes to pay off a porn star. so he's doing these light jabs. and, of course, this piers. morgan's interview looks like the strongest yet from the sentence. but you are seeing so much of a balancing act, and i think that will just continue to evolve. as we head to the primary season and again, he's a disciplined politicians just want a big reelection to florida governor question the strength of his opponent, but it was an impressive impressive win discipline, preparing to run for president and yet, listen here. we learn a little bit about rhonda status here by his i don't know. think you can beat biden. i think so. so you're running them now? i didn't say that. i just said, i think i could. i mean, i think that that's i mean, if you look at florida will be harder to beat biden or donald trump work out. i don't know the i don't know there is pretty

i think what rhonda sanders is doing is particularly interesting. you know, trump, by all accounts will turn himself in next week, so just scientist doesn't have to deal with an extradition issue, but by coming out against it, and it's not something he would have to touch in the first place. that's a pretty savvy political move, and i think all of the other republican candidates or potential ones are trying to figure out how do i get my message out there with all of the oxygen being sucked up by trump, and it's frankly the same issue they've been dealing with since 2016. he's just the biggest story and he's the only campaign issue right now. i think political science majors will be studying this for years to come. i would imagine lauren right from princeton university. thank you. so much for your insight and for joining us this morning. thank you. thank you, doctor. right time is now 609 will new this morning from rome, italy, the vatican says 86 year old pope francis is expected to be discharged from the hospital tomorrow after being treated for br

donald trump, not about to let the sanders remarks this week go unanswered posted on his platform. truth social. rhondaanctimonious is not working for the people of florida as he should be. he is too busy chatting with the ratings challenged tv host from england. how risky is it for dishonest to attack trump? one thing he knows is whatever he does whether he tries to ignore donald trump or whether he confronts donald trump. donald trump is going to be in his face . donald trump is going to follow the mike tyson strategy that everybody has a plan until they get in the face, and it's not just trump himself who is striking back at rond de santis. trump's allies are getting in on it. longtime trump adviser jason miller, responding to the piers morgan's interview tweeted that the sentence has quote finally shown his true colors and establishment. never trumper, who despises the mega base and was faking it the entire time and quote brian todd, cnn washington. now the hangover from boris johnson's party gate scandal has put his political future in peril for three hours. on wednesday, british lawmakers grilled