DeSantis revs up shadow campaign

Published

2 years ago

March 1, 2023

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is kicking his 2024 campaign-in-waiting into higher gear as a handful of his would-be Republican rivals gather this week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Over the weekend, the likely 2024 hopeful held a retreat for Republican donors and elected officials in West Palm Beach, Fla. He’s also kicking off an aggressive public schedule that includes a book tour through Florida, a speech at the Club for Growth’s annual donor retreat and appearances in Alabama, Texas and California in the coming days.

The flurry of activity comes as GOP luminaries and presidential contenders — including former President Trump, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — gather outside of Washington, D.C., this week for CPAC, the high-profile gathering of conservatives and a longtime mecca for Republican White House hopefuls.

DeSantis, who hasn’t formally launched a presidential bid yet, will be notably absent from the conference. But his jam-packed schedule is the latest — and perhaps clearest — sign that he’s entering a new, more aggressive phase of his 2024 preparations.

“What you’re seeing is that DeSantis has found a way to run without officially throwing his hat in the ring,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “The book deal, putting himself in front of donors — and at the same time he’s also back home reminding Floridians of who he is and what he’s done.”

“He’s finding a way to make that balance work,” O’Connell added. “He doesn’t want his hand forced.”

A campaign announcement from DeSantis is still likely months away; the governor said last week that he would make a final decision sometime after the Florida state legislature wraps up its regular session in May.

But there’s little doubt among Republicans that he will jump into the race. His advisers have been reaching out to potential campaign staff hires for at least several weeks. And in another sign that DeSantis is preparing for a campaign, he released a new book — “The Courage to be Free” — on Tuesday, taking a step that several other prospective candidates have already taken.

DeSantis is scheduled to attend two fundraisers in Texas on Saturday before jetting off to California on Sunday to speak at a reception for the Orange County GOP. He will also be the keynote speaker at the Alabama GOP’s annual Winter Dinner on March 9.

And there are signs that DeSantis will soon begin a swing through the early primary and caucus states that will be crucial to deciding the GOP’s 2024 nominee. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that he will make stops in Iowa in the first half of March, followed by trips to Nevada and New Hampshire.

Yet DeSantis and his team have signaled that they will move at their own pace when it comes to an official campaign launch, despite the fact that the primary field already includes three other candidates and is expected to grow larger in the coming weeks and months.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has said that he will make a decision on a 2024 run “by the spring,” while former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who’s scheduled to speak at CPAC, is expected to announce his intentions in a matter of months.

Meanwhile, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) has begun to prepare for a possible campaign. He traveled to Iowa last week, where he delivered a pair of speeches outlining his vision for a revamped GOP.

Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor, acknowledged that “there’s some nervousness among donors” that DeSantis hasn’t announced his 2024 intentions yet. But he also said that the Florida governor’s hands are tied until the end of the state legislative session, arguing that DeSantis is doing what he can to keep his momentum up.

“Gov. DeSantis can’t officially launch his campaign for the GOP nomination until after the legislative session ends in May, so he’s doing what he can now to keep one foot on the national stage,” Eberhart said.

“There’s some nervousness among donors that DeSantis isn’t out there more, but we still have a long way to go before the nomination is decided,” he added. “I don’t have any doubt that DeSantis will make a big splash in the pond of candidates when he does officially announce. In the meantime, those other candidates can decide how they want to take on Trump.”

For now, DeSantis appears to have at least some room to set his own schedule when it comes to a 2024 campaign. Early polling shows him and Trump running far ahead of every other Republican candidate, either current or prospective. In multiple hypothetical head-to-head match-ups against the former president, DeSantis has emerged as the favorite.

But there are still some key challenges facing DeSantis. Some recent polls have shown Trump coming out ahead of the governor in a GOP primary. One Republican consultant with deep experience in Florida politics said DeSantis “doesn’t have all the mechanics in place” for a campaign; he’s still trying to build out a more robust staff, while his massive political war chest remains tied up in state accounts.

Another GOP strategist questioned DeSantis’s decision to skip CPAC, saying that it’s a missed opportunity to put himself in front of the Republican Party’s conservative activist class.

“It’s a well-known Beltway commodity. Trump is going, Haley is going, so why not show up?” the strategist asked. “He knows where he wants to be, so I guess he doesn’t see it as a big deal. But if Trump’s going to be there, why cede that ground to him?” Bipartisan senators unveiling legislation aimed at preventing more toxic train derailments Vanessa Bryant receives nearly $29 million settlement in crash photos lawsuit: report

Other Republicans, however, argue that DeSantis is a special case, having managed to draw the kind of national attention that most would-be presidential contenders crave without going through the typical motions.

“He’s been able to generate national attention and national news coverage without going to these sort of cattle call events, and he’s risen to the top of the polls without having to do the sort of stuff that other candidates have to do,” said Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist who served as a senior aide to Mitt Romney during his 2012 presidential run.

“It’ll be a test for sure,” he added. “But it strikes me that he’s running the sort of race he wants to run, not running one driven by the formula of past rollouts.”

Sports

Secretariat Triple Crown jockey Turcotte, 84, dies

Published

2 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Secretariat Triple Crown jockey Turcotte, 84, dies

Associated Press

Aug 22, 2025, 04:10 PM ET

DRUMMOND, New Brunswick — Hall of Fame jockey Ron Turcotte, who rode Secretariat to the Triple Crown in 1973, has died. He was 84.

Turcotte’s family said through his longtime business partner and friend Leonard Lusky that the Canada-born jockey died of natural causes at his home in Drummond, New Brunswick, on Friday.

Turcotte won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes twice each from 1965-73 before his riding career ended when he fell off a horse and suffered injuries that caused paraplegia. Secretariat’s record time in the Belmont still stands 52 years later.

World

Famine declared in Gaza City – and projected to expand to two other areas in the next month

Published

2 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Famine declared in Gaza City - and projected to expand to two other areas in the next month

A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.

These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.

The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.

Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.

Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.

Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.

Israel says no famine in Gaza

Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.

“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.

Israel accused of allowing famine to fester in Gaza

Tom Fletcher, speaking on behalf of the United Nations, did not mince his words.

Gaza was suffering from famine, the evidence was irrefutable and Israel had not just obstructed aid but had also used hunger as a weapon of war.

His anger seeped through every sentence, just as desperation is laced through the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Conditions are expected to worsen, it says, even though the Gaza Strip has been classified as a level 5 famine. There is no level 6.

But it took only moments for the Israeli government to respond in terms that were just as strident.

Read Adam Parsons’ analysis here.

Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”

Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.

Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.

“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.

The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.

The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.

The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.

But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.

World

Suspect arrested over Nord Stream attacks served in Ukraine’s army, Sky News understands

Published

2 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Suspect arrested over Nord Stream attacks served in Ukraine's army, Sky News understands

The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.

Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.

It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.

According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.

When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.

The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.

Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.

At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.

He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.

After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.

Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.

He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.

While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.

The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.

In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.

German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.

Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.

The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.

According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.

Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.

On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.