Having a proverbial beer with Ron DeSantis

NEW: Donald Trump opened the first rally of his 2024 campaign with a song mixing him saying the Pledge of Allegiance with the national anthem sung by the "J6 Prison Choir." We set out to ID the accused rioters his campaign is glorifying washingtonpost.com/investigations… “It was very much an honor,” Trump said, adding that playing the song was his idea. “Those people were treated very badly.”
He has also floated pardoning rioters, praised a slain insurrectionist, & last week embraced a woman convicted in a Jan. 6 case. washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/…

When sexual misconduct complaint against Matt Schlapp surfaced, allies rallied to his defense. Now current & fmr employees, board members, others described a wider range of complaints about his leadership of CPAC. Some of @bethreinhard & my findings...
washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/… Call logs, texts, videos broadly match Herschel Walker staffer's account of Schlapp making unwanted sexual advances on Oct. 19.
6 family/friends + 3 campaign officials confirmed he told them about the alleged incident that night or the next day.

A couple months ago, @jdawsey1 challenged us to tackle the biggest question in American politics today: Is Trump fading? We fanned out across the 5 states that decide presidential elections, talked to 150+ Trump voters, and here's what we found... washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/… From the baseline of Trump's unassailable primacy with GOP voters in recent years, his standing has slipped. The top reason we heard was electability — concern about whether he could win, even among people who believe the election was stolen and the opposition to him was unfair

Good morning from the MI GOP convention where a floor fight has broken out over how to count the votes for state chair. Some delegates calling state party's system "corrupt" & needs auditable "chain of custody"; others warning the alternate procedure will keep us here all night "How many of us got into this fight because of flash drives and laptops?" delegate demanding auditable count says to cheers

NEW: Inside the tumultuous Trump-DeSantis relationship, which is shaping up to be a defining dynamic of the GOP primary — w/ @jdawsey1 @KnowlesHannah washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/… DeSantis was skeptical of Trump before he won the presidency and made fun of Trump on multiple occasions. Later, he was determined to get Trump’s blessing to boost his bid for governor.

CPAC straw poll no. 1 issue: election integrity 91% say greatest threat to country is internal

The Oath Keepers are known as a violent extremist group. You can see some members here in tactical gear moving up the Capitol steps on Jan. 6.

We got a membership list from an anonymous hacker.

It included 10 sitting state lawmakers, all GOP.

THREAD 1. @MikeClampitt told me serving in the state legislature was how he participates in the Oath Keepers today. He cosponsored a bill to let elected officials carry concealed guns in courthouses/schools. Clampitt said he opposes violence but stood by his Oath Keepers affiliation.

BREAKING: We found 1000s of Trump supporters taking over local GOP positions — an unprecedented grassroots groundswell devoted to Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election was stolen & Republicans need to stop that from happening again
propublica.org/article/heedin… This movement was organized in far-right media, led by figures like Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn & Lin Wood. It spread on fringe social platforms and forums aligned with QAnon.

Dozens of Trump’s biggest donors previously showed no major interest in politics.

I took a hard look at newcomers who gave at least $1M and could now shape the future of the GOP and American democracy.

Let's meet the MAGA Money... (THREAD)
propublica.org/article/trump-… These are just some of the new GOP mega-donors who Trump brought off the sidelines. Some of them share the same extreme views as many Trump supporters on the election, vaccines, masks & other issues.

I wanted to understand who was responsible for the Trump admin’s record string of executions.

I got 1000s pages of govt records & court docs. They showed officials trampling over legal & practical barriers.

Here’s what I learned:
propublica.org/article/inside… 1. The govt is using a lethal injection drug from a secret source that failed a lab test.

2. Barr & aides picked who to execute. Reasons they gave were factually inaccurate.

3. DOJ outsourced executions to private contractors paid in CASH.

More details below.

The site of one of the big ICE raids, Koch Foods' plant in Morton, Miss., has been under scrutiny recently for its business practices. 1/6https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/us/ice-raids-mississippi.html This is the same place where managers were accused of discriminating against black farmers. A federal investigator found evidence of unjust discrimination, but the company denied wrongdoing and hasn't faced any penalty. 2/6 propublica.org/article/how-a-…

1/ This is a story about how lobbyists try to influence the president:
propublica.org/article/trump-… 2/ Meet Albert Hazzouri, a cosmetic dentist and Trump’s golf buddy.

NEW: Congress has pumped $19.4 billion since 2014 into private health care for veterans. Where has the money gone?
propublica.org/article/va-pri… The Veterans Choice Program was supposed to give veterans a way around long waits in the VA. How did that work out? Wait times did not get better.
propublica.org/article/va-pri…

NEW: I’ve got more documents showing how deeply involved the VA Shadow Rulers were in some of the agency’s most consequential issues. Here are some highlights...
propublica.org/article/va-sha… The Mar-a-Lago trio reviewed a $10 billion government contract that the VA was negotiating to overhaul the agency’s electronic health records. Here’s my recent story on the turmoil in that program :
propublica.org/article/va-sha…

NEW: The Trump administration is planning to announce in the State of the Union a plan to shift more veterans’ health care to the private sector.
propublica.org/article/trump-… The administration’s plan could cost ~$13.9B to $32.1B over 5 years, and send as many as 55% of veterans to private doctors, up from about 38% now.
propublica.org/article/trump-…