Big Money Donors Flip To Trump

Goodbye Ron.

Hello Don!

“Dead by Labor Day!”

EXCLUSIVE: Ron DeSantis $50 million super PAC CLOSES after donors were spooked by ‘rookie s*** mistakes’https://t.co/FqEC92RExQ

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) August 31, 2023

The founder of the big money Super PAC “Ron to the Rescue” that reportedly raised $50 million (or was it just $50 million in “verbal commitments”? We’ll analyze down below.) from wealthy donors for the governor has pronounced the Ron DeSantis campaign DEAD.

Mr. Thomas places the blame squarely on the candidate and his ongoing fumbles.

He did not hold back in his blistering critique of Ron DeSantis and his “failure to launch” campaign for the Republican nomination for president.

The Gateway Pundit pulled this on point quote of Thomas describing DeSantis’ efforts since day one:

Republican Strategist John Thomas, the FOUNDER of the DeSantis Super PAC just went on News Nation and dropped a bomb! Thomas told News Nation that DeSantis lacks all of the qualities that make a good candidate – charm, charisma, discipline, being likeable – and he is now backing Trump.

John Thomas: I, along with a lot of grassroots supporters and major donors, said, okay, let’s draft DeSantis, encourage him to run for president, because we think he’s got the stuff.

Except there was one problem, Adrian. It’s that when Governor DeSantis did end up launching, he had a failure to launch, and he’s never recovered. And while he may be a great governor, he’s not ready for the national stage, and we don’t think that he’s ready to beat Joe Biden.

And on the flip side, Adrian, we think that Donald Trump, in spite of all of his legal challenges, has honestly run nearly a flawless effort with strategic ad spends against his opponent, DeSantis, good messaging choices that really I hadn’t seen in 2016 or 2020. So for all of those reasons, we all reversed course to get behind Donald Trump, not just because we think he’s going to be the nominee, but honestly, we think he’s the best person to beat Joe Biden in the general.

The emphasis here is on electability.

From the Gateway Pundit, Mr. Thomas continued:

…Looking back, it seems quite clear, right, that DeSantis might not be ready for prime time. Was it was a risk? Certainly. And it was a miscalculation on our behalf, thinking that sometimes, and we’ve seen this in other cases what makes somebody good for one office? The skills don’t directly translate to another. For instance, when you’re running for governor or Congress, oftentimes the main skills you need are ability to raise money and roll television ads. When you run for president, yes, of course, that’s important. But retail politicking, charisma, charm, discipline, being able to conduct yourself in a likable manner on television interviews, those are all equal, if not more important, than your ability to roll the TV ads. And DeSantis just hasn’t had it. And then the last thing I would say, Adrian, is like, there are some basic failure launch mechanics, for instance, choosing to launch on Twitter spaces. Of course, I don’t fault the governor. Nobody could have known that system was broken, but the governor blew it in the sense of he didn’t even have a simulcast video stream for new television stations to cover it.

John Thomas and major donors thought Ron DeSantis had the right stuff to be president.

Ignoring the fact that President Trump is the people-chosen leader of the Republican party.

Thomas said at the time he formed the PAC “okay, let’s draft DeSantis, encourage him to run for president, because we think he’s got the stuff.”

Unfortunately, Mr. Thomas, like the Paul Ryan, Bush, FOX, RINO establishment class, was backing the wrong guy.

We agree with John Thomas now when he says “DeSantis lacks all of the qualities that make a good candidate – charm, charisma, discipline, being likeable.” These are the reasons he gives for endorsing President Trump.

This is good news for America First because it’s important to take money out of anti-Trump efforts.

We’ve got a country to save!

Now let’s analyze the claim of $50 million of donations…

We had actually Fact-Checked this a few days ago.

Here is what we found:

While Collin Rugg who is usually extremely reliable reports that the PAC reportedly had $50 million in political donations pledged to DeSantis’ campaign, others report that is no where close to accurate.  We’ll break it down below.

But it does appear to be accurate that the PAC is disbanding.

The funniest part about this entire thing? The PAC organizer will now reportedly be diverting the donations to President Trump! They’re now supporting Trump!

Spokespeople for DeSantis claimed that this PAC was always a scam and used DeSantis’ likeness without permission. …

Collin Rugg explained: “The super PAC was set up by Republican strategist John Thomas who secured massive commitments from mega donors. Thomas said he began having second thoughts after DeSantis’ Twitter Spaces announcement back in May.”

JUST IN: Governor Ron DeSantis' $50 million super PAC is shutting down as donors are beginning to jump ship.

According to the Daily Mail, the super PAC will now be backing Donald Trump after they accused the governor of making "rookie s***" mistakes.

The super PAC was set up by… pic.twitter.com/ecBsrFQycF

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 31, 2023

So…is $50 million accurate?

You may know we’re not big fans of Bill Mitchell around here, but truth is truth and he seems to have the accurate read here:

https://twitter.com/mitchellvii/status/1697319466982371331

According to the FEC website, we see $291.01 for 2023 and $1,330 raised for 2022.

Bill appears to be correct — a far cry from $50 million:

The Daily Mail suggests perhaps the $50 million was a legitimate number of “commitments” which were later pulled and never materialized after big donors saw big mistakes from DeSantis:

A super PAC set up to back Ron DeSantis with $50 million is closing as donors backed out – while its founder said the Florida governor’s campaign was guilty of ‘rookie s**t’ mistakes and he will now back Donald Trump.

John Thomas, a Republican strategist known as the ‘Billy the Kid of Political Battles’ set up ‘Ron to the Rescue’ in November and had secured financial commitments from mega-wealthy donors.

But he said the donors began having second thoughts after the botched DeSantis campaign launch on Twitter Spaces in May.

But the bigger story perhaps is a DIFFERENT DeSantis PAC.

The real one…

The big one…

Never Back Down.

It appears “Never Back Down” has “backed down” on Nevada.

UH OH!

Senior Advisor to President Trump, Jason Miller had this to say: “DeSanctus and the DeSanctimonians quit on Nevada, Super Tuesday states. They know his campaign is dropping like a rock!”

DeSanctus and the DeSanctimonians quit on Nevada, Super Tuesday states. They know his campaign is dropping like a rock!

“Pro-Ron DeSantis super PAC ends door-knocking in Nevada and Super Tuesday states” https://t.co/c7EFQ7vbsw

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) August 31, 2023

Daily Mail broke the story:

Thomas said he and his donor network are now in the process of figuring out how to help raise money for former president Trump in his campaign.

Campaigns have to report their latest fundraising figures by the end of September.

‘We’re going to see after the reporting period of September 30 how Trump’s cash on hand is and then we’re going to try to determine where we can fill in gaps, if it’s needed,’ said Thomas

Epoch Times Editor Nanette Holt shared this statement from Andrew Romeo, DeSantis’ communication director:

“We’ve made clear from the beginning that this was a scam PAC looking to grift off Ron DeSantis and it comes as welcome news they are no longer attempting to fleece our donors.

Ron DeSantis outraised both Biden and Trump last quarter, and we look forward to continuing our fundraising success as we capitalize on his strong debate performance and momentum in the early states.”

Goodbye to "Grift"
In response to opponents' gleeful reports about the folding of the Ron to the Rescue PAC, the presidential campaign team of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis:

"We've made clear from the beginning that this was a scam PAC looking to grift off Ron DeSantis and it…

— Nanette Holt (@NanReportsNews) August 31, 2023

Political commentator Gunther Eagleman took a jab at DeSantis: “While polling in single digits, Ron DeSantis super PAC has decided to end door-knocking in several states. Listening to Paul Ryan cost Ron DeSantis his career in politics.”

BREAKING: while polling in single digits, Ron DeSantis super PAC has decided to end door-knocking in several states.

Listening to Paul Ryan cost Ron DeSantis his career in politics.

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) August 31, 2023

NBC News reported this regarding a different DeSantis PAC, indicating that the Presidential hopeful is having problems on multiple fronts:

Never Back Down, the super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, has ceased its door-knocking operations in Nevada, home to a key early nominating contest, and California, a delegate-rich Super Tuesday state, officials confirmed Wednesday.

They added that in recent weeks, the group also ended its field operations in North Carolina and Texas, two additional states that vote on Super Tuesday in March.