14 Jun 2024

‘All hands on deck’: Trump vows to help GOP in House races

by | posted in: Politics | 0

John T. Bennett and Daniela Altimari | (TNS) CQ-Roll Call

WASHINGTON — House Republican lawmakers serenaded former President Donald Trump on Thursday, as he urged them and their Senate counterparts to hold the line on hot-button issues like abortion, immigration and trade tariffs — and work harder to win both chambers in November.

Senators, following a separate meeting with Trump, described that session as upbeat and focused on the path to Election Day in November. Like House Republicans, senators said the former president boasted he has raised $400 million in campaign cash.

Trump was on Capitol Hill for the first time since a mob of his supporters stormed the legislative hall on Jan. 6, 2021, trying to stop lawmakers from counting Electoral College votes showing Trump lost the 2020 election. It also marked his first appearance on the Hill since becoming a convicted felon two weeks ago, and put him face-to-face with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., with whom he has clashed, for the first time in three years.

Trump’s morning session in private with House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club was described as something of a pep rally for conservative causes. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and others said the atmosphere was a mix of civil and serious, with some lighter moments.

“The president was having a little fun cracking jokes, that kind of thing,” said Donalds, mentioned on some lists as a potential Trump running mate. “But then, also talking seriously just about [members] just working hard to get to the finish line in this election.”

House Republicans are weighing several legislative moves in response to Trump’s conviction, including a bill that would allow former presidents to move state-level cases to federal court and efforts to strip funding for the special counsel that is still pursuing federal indictments accusing Trump of orchestrating the Jan. 6 attack to overturn the 2020 election, and of mishandling classified documents after he left the White House. None of the measures, if they get through the chamber, is expected to clear the Senate, which is under Democratic control, or be signed by Biden.

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., described the session as “a pretty good rally-the-troops kind of speech.” Trump will turn 78 on Friday, and several members, with grins, said House Republicans sang “Happy Birthday.”

As they dodged a handful of anti-Trump protesters outside, multiple members said Trump said Speaker Mike Johnson is doing a “great job,” and he teased Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who has clashed with Johnson, R-La. Members said Trump asked if she has been more “nice” to Johnson. “Some people kind of laughed. A few cheered,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. “I thought she took it very gracious.”

Lawmakers said Trump stood by his boasting about how conservatives on the Supreme Court — including three that he appointed — ended federal abortion protections. He also vowed to again use tariffs as president and endorsed a House-passed Republican immigration measure known as H.R. 2.

“He’s a big believer in tariffs,” Cole said, noting Trump spoke about the trade tactic “at great length,” and added: “He clearly supports them as a tool.”

On abortion, “he still believes that the Dobbs decision was the right decision for America, and the American people need to decide the issue, as they are doing right now,” said Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern, R-Okla., referring to the Supreme Court decision that ended federal protections for abortion access.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., was asked about Trump’s message on abortion. He replied: “You know, that we’re working towards where the American people are.”

But many red-state legislatures and courts in recent months have passed laws and issued rulings banning abortion and otherwise limiting reproductive rights — defying polling showing majorities of Americans do not support such tough restrictions.

At campaign rallies and in other public remarks of late, Trump has said the Dobbs ruling rightfully handed the hot-button issue — on which polls show voters siding with Democrats — to state governments. To that end, he told House members Thursday that state “legislatures need to make that decision and we’re seeing that happen across America,” Hern said.

“He said there may be a time and place for the federal government to get involved, but right now, what needs to be done is the voices of the people in the states [should be heard],” the chairman added. “Some are going the right way for Republicans and some are not and he acknowledged that.”

More broadly, Cassidy said Trump’s afternoon remarks centered around “the money he’s raising, the support he’s seeing, and the issues he’s discussing.” Senators said Trump vowed to expand energy extraction in Alaska and claimed Russia would not have attacked Ukraine on his watch.

His meetings with Hill Republicans were intended as a show of support for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee following his conviction on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records. It also was meant as a display of Republican unity after, especially on the House side, GOP members have clashed with themselves in recent months.

While Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah — all Trump critics — said they would skip the afternoon session with Trump, the former president’s popularity within the party is as strong as ever. For instance, 80.4% of GOP voters had a favorable view of Trump, according to a FiveThirtyEight analysis. (Less than one-third, 17.8%, reported having an unfavorable view.)

Trump, despite becoming the first former U.S. president to be convicted by a jury, continues to run a competitive race against President Joe Biden. Another FiveThirtyEight metric put them in a dead heat nationally, with Trump leading 40.9% to Biden’s 40%.

Ratings by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales give Trump the advantage five months from Election Day in the Electoral College race, with a projected 235 votes to Biden’s 226 — but both would be shy of the 270 needed to secure the presidency.

Hern told reporters that Trump described the swing states that are expected to decide the presidential race as “looking really good right now,” noting that Trump told House members “people are really turning out in huge numbers” and that the former president believes “his message is being well received.”

As the 2024 campaign heats up, Cole — who faces a primary challenge on Tuesday — said the House GOP conference “will be extraordinarily supportive” of Trump, and along with Senate Republicans “will give him an exceptional platform — lots of chips to play.”

Inside Elections and other political prognosticators see control of both chambers as up for grabs. To that end, Donalds said Trump indicated he intends to get involved in congressional races. That’s despite the former president’s poor record with helping the party win congressional races since he first was on the ballot in 2016.

“He’s going to work hard. You know, he wants everybody to be successful,” he said. “It’s all hands on deck.”

But Hern said Trump made clear that “he’s not going to carry the load for us — we can’t stop working as individuals.”

Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who is running against GOP Whip John Thune of South Dakota and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida to be the next Republican leader of the chamber, was asked about Trump engaging in verbal sparring sessions with Senate GOP critics in the past.

“I know there was none of that,” Cornyn told reporters. “I think he recognizes now, having been through a few elections, that unity is strength and division is an invitation for your opponents to beat you.”

As always, both sessions were vintage Trump. “He ran the gamut” of issues, said Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.

Sen. Ted Cruz said Trump’s conviction hasn’t chastened the president or softened his blunter edges. “I don’t think it’s possible to water down Donald Trump,” the Texas Republican said. “He is who he is and he’s a force of nature.”

The senators presented Trump with a sheet cake in honor of his birthday and, while the gathering touched on crucial issues such as border security, energy policy and the economy, the mood was light. “The biggest takeaway was unity,” Cruz said. “Everyone was on the same page, we were all focused on winning in November … the president was in very good spirits. He believes the American people are ready for a change.”

On border security and energy policy, Trump sketched out broad themes. “You can take just about any rally and walk through it and that’s what we walked through today,” said Sen. James Lankford, R.-Okla.

Trump’s comments on immigration did not delve into the specifics of a bill negotiated by Lankford, along with Democratic Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The measure fell short after Trump urged GOP senators to reject it.

Lankford said divides within the Republican Party are often overblown. “We agree on a whole lot more than we disagree on,’’ he said.

But did Trump show any cards about who he will select to be his running mate during his third White House bid?

“No,” Donalds said with a chuckle behind sunglasses on one of the warmest days so far this year in Washington, D.C. “We didn’t get into that.”

Multiple senators also said Trump did not bring up his running-mate selection process, but with several potential No. 2’s in the room, it was alluded to.

“I did notice he did mention the names Tim Scott and J.D. Vance. … He mentioned all the senators who might be candidates,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., referring to the senators from South Carolina and Ohio. He also said Trump mentioned Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a former rival turned potential running mate.

Cornyn quipped: “I do know that the named vice presidential, you know, prospective candidates were all sitting up very close to where the president was speaking.”

Trump pledged to help Republican Senate candidates, several of whom trail him in polls.

“His focus was on how we can jump in and help every candidate,’’ Lankford said, adding that he expects Trump to hold rallies and telephone town halls with candidates.

One still-sensitive incident — on Capitol Hill, at least — that did not come up in the afternoon meeting: the Jan. 6 riot. Cramer said of the session’s content: “It was all forward-leaning.”

——-

(Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.)

___

©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

14 Jun 2024

As Pope makes G-7 debut, a spat unfolds over LGBTQ rights

by | posted in: News | 0

Donato Paolo Mancini, Jennifer Jacobs and Alberto Nardelli | Bloomberg News (TNS)

Pope Francis made his debut at the Group of Seven summit, landing in a white helicopter and rolling into a room of world leaders to deliver a warning about artificial intelligence being “fascinating and terrible.”

Anticipation of the leader of the Catholic church had already infused an air of religiosity into a gathering that is typically concerned with geopolitics. Behind the scenes, Italy was ruffling feathers by pushing to dilute references on abortion and LGBTQ rights.

The pope’s formal role was to take part in discussions on regulating AI, a topic he feels strongly about having already sounded the alarm on the risk of “technological dictactorship.” As if to underscore his remonstrances, an image of the pope in a white puffer coat went viral last year and was later revealed to be a deep fake.

The touch of the sacred has rubbed off on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the unwed mother of a single child who has made upholding traditional values a key part of her brand. “I am a woman, I am Italian, I’m a Christian — you won’t take it away from me,” she famously said at a political rally that was turned into a song remix.

To be sure, she’s also not afraid to lean on the profane. She frequently evokes her salt-of-the earth Roman upbringing, and has been caught on camera using vulgar slurs as terms of endearment. It’s an ability to span both worlds that’s part of the right-wing premier’s electoral appeal.

She’s courted the Pope’s favor in policy areas like her crusade to encourage Italians to have more children, undermining a theoretical firewall between church and state. She’s also been unapologetic about her mission to deny LGBTQ people equal rights in marriage and parenthood.

Pope Francis saw the devoutly Catholic U.S. President Joe Biden who speaks frequently of his warm relationship with the pontiff. The two touched foreheads earlier on Friday as the pontiff worked the room.

Even before arriving in full regalia, the pope’s spirit was being felt in backroom negotiations over the communique.

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This year the Italians, as hosts, have gone on the offensive to argue strenuously for references to abortion to be removed from the statement — something that’s normally a standard part of the wording, and was included in the text that came out of last year’s G-7, which Meloni herself attended.

In the end, a cosmetic workaround was reached. Under pressure from the Americans and others, the final communique will instead reiterate a commitment to last year’s version, according to the draft seen by Bloomberg and sources familiar with the negotiations — a reference to abortion in all but name.

The draft also appears to have diluted protections for LGBTQ people by removing mentions of gender identity and sexual orientation.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the communique would continue to protect and promote the rights of LGBTQ people globally, specifically around the threats they face, with unchanged commitment.

On Thursday French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the tensions in the room, telling reporters he regretted that a reference to abortion disappeared from the text.

At home, Meloni has drawn the ire of groups in favor of reproductive rights for women by fanning the flames of anti-abortion rhetoric but stopped short of changing the law on the matter.

Unlike Meloni, which has shown to be profoundly mainstream in matters of foreign policy, Francis has flaunted a particular disregard for diplomatic protocol, going off-script on conflicts such as those in Ukraine and that between Israel and Hamas.

That makes his attendance at this summit potentially tricky. Even religious government aides in Rome describe as a loose cannon and prone to the more than occasional blunder. Ukrainian officials have been deeply critical of Pope Francis, who has sung the praises of Russian tzars and suggested Ukraine raise a white flag.

He was forced to apologize last month after allegedly saying “there was too much faggotry” among homosexual men wishing to become priests, highlighting the profoundly complex relationship the Church has with the LGBTQ community.

Yet earlier this week, he appeared unrepentant. He was reported as telling Roman priests “there was an air of faggotry” in the Vatican while condemning the power of “LGBT lobbies.” This time, the Vatican had a statement ready and it notably lacked an apology.

The pope’s reported uses of LGBTQ slurs did draw short shrift from the White House, which said after his first alleged use of the slur that “everyone, including LGBTQ+ persons, deserves dignity and should not be discriminated because of who they are, who they love.”

Will Biden chide Pope Francis in person? Politics has occasionally exposed rifts in their relationship, such as when he called Biden’s support for abortion rights an “incoherence.”

But ultimately, their shared faith has meant the two leaders have tended to back each other up and glide over their differences.

“This is a man who is of great empathy,” Biden said in 2021 of the Pope. “He is a man who understands that part of his Christianity is to reach out and to forgive. And so I just find my relationship with him one that I personally take great solace in. He is a really, truly genuine, decent man.”

(With assistance from Brian Platt, Justin Sink and Arne Delfs.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

14 Jun 2024

Biden to join Obama, salvo of Hollywood star power Saturday in LA

by | posted in: Politics | 0

President Joe Biden is coming to Hollywood on Saturday, surrounding himself with big-name celebrities led by late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel who will interview him at a live event, along with former President Barack Obama and mega-stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts.

The Biden re-election campaign hopes to top the haul from a similar, celebrity-studded campaign stop in New York City in March, when he was interviewed by Stephen Colbert, host of “Late Night with Stephen Colbert.” That event included Obama, former president Bill Clinton, and several Broadway stars. It raised $25 million for Biden’s campaign.

But many say there’s nothing better than a Los Angeles gathering of superstars to pad the campaign’s cash reserves. And California, a blue state projected as an easy win for the president, will play a familiar role for out-of-state candidates.

“California has been called the ATM machine of national politics,” said Joel Fox, adjunct professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University on Thursday, June 13.

“They come out to California to collect money to spend someplace else,” Fox added. “The state serves as an ATM for the Republican side, too, it is consistent.” He was referring to former President Donald Trump’s recent fundraising stop in Beverly Hills.

Trump and the Republican Party outraised Biden in April, raking in $76 million as compared to $51 million for Biden and the Democratic National Committee that same month. Biden said he had a $192 million war chest at the end of April, the same as previous months, meaning he appears to be spending it as fast as it comes in.

For example, Biden on June 13 launched a seven-figure ad in Spanish and English in battleground states on “lowering costs for food and rent,” raising wages and creating jobs, the campaign reported. Campaign ads are rarely aired in California.

FILE – In this Jan. 4, 2017 file photo, then Vice President Joe Biden, left, watches then President Barack Obama, center, at Conmy Hall, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Va. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Some wonder if hob-knobbing with rich celebrities sends the wrong message to Black and Brown voters struggling to make ends meet. Los Angeles County Democratic Party Chair Mark Gonzalez disagreed.

“Celebrities support good union jobs,” he said, noting the Biden calls himself the most supportive union president in American history. “They contribute to the local economy. Film industry brings taxes to Los Angeles.” He noted some country western performers support Trump. These include: Jason Aldean, Toby Keith and Kid Rock.

Kimmel has risen from a radio career and later, a half-hour show on Comedy Central, “The Man Show” that featured testosterone-infused sketches of beer-chugging guys, female models bouncing on trampolines and toilet jokes. He has been host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC-TV since 2003, and mixes humor with serious talk.

On June 8, 2022, he interviewed President Biden on the show not long after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed. The two discussed gun background checks. More recently, Vice President Kamala Harris was a guest.

Gonzalez said Kimmel brings Biden’s message to a younger voting bloc — those under 45. Though born in Brooklyn, he moved to Las Vegas, Nev. with his family as a child, where he attended college and became a deejay.

“His name is connected to the campaign,” Gonzalez said. “Growing up in Nevada, a swing state, can appeal to Nevada voters. Now in California, he is a validator and has an audience who can put their support behind the president.”

Kimmel has publicly sparred with Trump. On social media, the presumptive Republican nominee heavily criticized his performance as host of the 2023 and 2024 Academy Awards shows. During the last show, Kimmel read the social media slam, then ended  with this quip: “Isn’t it past your jail time?”

This Saturday event will take place after Trump has been convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an effort to conceal a hush-money payment to a porn star with whom he allegedly had sex. Prosecutors said it was a cover-up to prevent voters in 2016 from learning about the extra-marital affair.

It also comes just a few days after the president’s son, Hunter Biden, was convicted of three felony firearm charges involving lying on a mandatory gun purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs, and illegally having the gun for 11 days.

Whether either issue will be raised by Kimmel remains a question. Kimmel’s public relations team, and Biden’s campaign both did not return emails. Gonzalez said asking about the president’s son would be “uncouth” and “irrelevant.” “His son isn’t running for president,” he said.

A Biden campaign aide told People magazine that Kimmel will ask about democracy issues, abortion rights and Obamacare and the GOP’s failed attempts to kill it. Kimmel may discuss his son, Billy, who had open heart surgery shortly after birth. On his show, he said no one should be denied healthcare because they can’t afford it, and uplifted the Affordable Care Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

The event is selling tickets by donations via Eventbrite, at a not-yet-disclosed venue. Last week, it was reported Biden would attend a fundraiser at the Peacock Theater in LA Live! The invitation said the campaign will accept tickets selling from $0 to $500,000.

Fox said celebrities mixing with presidential candidates can give a campaign a jolt, but they really don’t add new voters.

“I don’t think it moves the needle much at all,” he said. “It could have some effect but ultimately, it comes down to politics and policy.”

Fox, who was a senior aide to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said at a San Diego rally, people lined a shopping plaza to catch a glimpse of the movie star, not the politician.

“The vote comes down to who is best for me in the economy, who is best for me in terms of my safety, for immigration and the wars overseas,” Fox said.

Celebrities and campaigns are not a new marriage. Ronald Reagan was a movie actor who ran successfully for governor, then president, he said.

“It’s not a new story that celebrities get involved with presidential candidates. It goes back to that famous singing of Happy Birthday by Marilyn Monroe to JFK,” Fox said.

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14 Jun 2024

‘I was a MAGA activist. I was a MAGA true believer.’ He’s now creating a community for people who abandon Trump.

by | posted in: Society | 0

Rich Logis was deep into Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. Very, very deep.

Among the hardest of hard-core supporters for seven years, he bought into the rhetoric, and espoused it as his own.

Logis shunned those who disagreed, and developed bonds with fellow believers.

He spent hours at the computer, posting on social media and writing pro-Trump missives. In person, volunteered for the Trump campaign, he spoke at events and helped develop a Broward-based political club, Americans for Trump.

He ignored sources of information that didn’t echo MAGA viewpoints, and castigated journalists and news outlets that didn’t parrot the party line.

No more.

“It turned out that I was wrong,” Logis said in an interview. “I should not have supported this person. I should not have supported other MAGA candidates.”

Having done a 180 almost two years ago, Logis is now focused on creating a community for people like him, onetime true believers who have left the MAGA universe, or are contemplating leaving it behind.

Leaving MAGA

What is now widely known as MAGA started as the acronym for Make America Great Again, the slogan Trump used during his successful 2016 presidential campaign, a phrase emblazoned on the red hats frequently worn by the candidate and his supporters.

The vehicle for the community Logis hopes to create is a new organization, Leaving MAGA. It has a nascent presence online at leavingmaga.org, with organizers preparing for a public launch around the Fourth of July.

At launch, people will see the faces of Leaving MAGA via recorded video testimonials from those who were heavily into the movement and who, like Logis, changed their views and left. Also in the works, a downloadable e-book, a social media campaign, and efforts to generate news coverage.

Leaving MAGA’s website lists three objectives:

Empower others to leave MAGA and tell their stories.
Foster reconciliation with their friends and family.
Develop movement leaders to help others leave.

In essence, the plan is to extend a hand.

Logis said shouting or lecturing his former cohorts would be counterproductive. The idea of Leaving MAGA is to provide a place where people can find the sense of community they had within the MAGA movement.

“We want them to have a place to go. That is one of the most difficult parts — and for some will be the most difficult part of leaving — that they’re going to walk away from a community that they’ve been completely emotionally connected to for probably several years,” Logis said.

The positive approach — “an exit ramp of sorts” — to a non-MAGA community is essential.

“Without a new place to go, I could not realistically expect people to leave, even if deep down they know that they should.”

Logis also has a message for those who don’t like Trump and get agitated at his supporters.

“I really implore people who are anti-Trump, anti-MAGA to consider and think about how they speak about Trump voters,” Logis said. “If you refer to Trump voters as cultists and you say that they’re Nazis and you say that they’re racist and you say they’re misogynists and that they’re homophobes and that they’re Islamophobes …  you’re pushing them closer. You’re giving them reasons to stay.”

Community

Logis said it’s impossible to overstate the feeling of community that enveloped him, and others in the MAGA world.

“We were true believers and we invested all of our being into MAGA. We had our tight-knit community, we’d go to birthday parties and holiday dinners and, and kids’ events sometimes, all the events people do in social circles. We were unified as MAGA-Americans,” Logis said.

“My MAGA second family, as much as I’m embarrassed to admit this, oftentimes took precedence over my actual blood family,” he said. Looking back, he said his immersion in the world of MAGA strained relationships, including in his family.

Logis, 47, has a wife and two children.

“I want us to be a destination,” Logis said, adding that right now “there’s nowhere for them. They don’t have a feeling of anywhere to go.”

Kevin Wagner, a political scientist at Florida Atlantic University and co-director of the PolCom Lab, which conducts public opinion research, said that the sense of community Logis described is a part of its appeal for some.

“They see people who are similar to them or at least have the same values as them and it creates a sense of camaraderie. And that is an effective organizing principle for political movements historically, and it shows up here,” he said.

Conceptually, he said the idea of “a different community with a different political direction does make some sense.”

Not so fast

Wagner cautioned the organization’s plan would be exceedingly difficult to execute, noting that groups such as the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump, among other well-funded efforts, are working in a similar space.

“It’s pretty clear that they haven’t had the kind of traction that the MAGA movement has had,” Wagner said.

Logis said Leaving MAGA’s effort isn’t the same as the others, which are more focused on the coming election.

It’s also difficult, he said, for people to differentiate among groups that are genuinely civic-oriented as opposed to those that are run primarily for online traffic and ultimately profit.

Scott Newmark is even more skeptical.

“It’s tilting at windmills. It’s fanciful,” Newmark said. “The effort is misguided.”

Newmark is the founder of Americans for Trump, a Broward political organization that has been on hiatus since he moved to Palm Beach County shortly after the 2020 election.

Newmark said the number of people who share Logis’s current outlook and are thinking of departing the movement is infinitesimally small, if it exists at all.

“What kind of legs does this kind of a movement have?” Newmark asked. “I don’t know a single person who is contemplating leaving MAGA to go over to (vote for President Joe Biden). That’s not going to happen.”

Newmark said he still considers Logis and his wife friends. “It saddens me that he’s gone away from the MAGA movement because he was a very good, articulate spokesman for it. He was a big part of the events. We were very close,” Newmark said.

Rich Logis, seen in his home Wednesday, has now started Leaving MAGA, providing a community for people who’ve changed their views. (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Potential

Logis believes there are many more people like him.

And there is evidence of dissatisfaction with Trump among at least some Republicans.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the most anti-Trump unsuccessful candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, received more than 4.2 million primary votes — more than a quarter of which came after she dropped out. (She subsequently said she’s supporting Trump for president.)

In the Florida primary, Haley received 155,560 votes or 13.9%.

Steve Vilchez, a resident of suburban Chicago, is among those who have left MAGA.

He was enthralled with the movement, but never voted for Trump because he was too young.

Now, 20, Vilchez said, “I will never vote for this man.”

He’s recording one of the videos for the Leaving MAGA launch.

Drawn into MAGA via social media, “I started to slowly but surely embrace the MAGA agenda even though in retrospect, internally, I knew that it was wrong. But I just didn’t know that. I was so convinced that all of Trump’s policies are right, even if I still somewhat disagreed,” he said.

He dropped news outlets that presented a broad range of information and devoured content from Fox, One America News and Newsmax, along with even more right-leaning websites and personalities.

Vilchez, currently a student at Illinois State University hoping to become science teacher, said he started to have doubts during the pandemic when Trump raised the prospect of warding off the virus by injecting bleach or shining a light in the body.

Still, he said he believed the untrue claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

Vilchez, whose parents immigrated from Mexico, said he didn’t like Trump’s unfulfilled 2016 campaign promise to build a wall and have Mexico pay for it. “But since I started to listen to these right-leaning conservative outlets, I slowly began to embrace it and support that policy,” he said.

“Looking at it now, it just doesn’t make sense because why would I support a strict border and strong deportation policy when my parents came to America from the country that Donald Trump seems to despise so much?” adding it was “a contradiction that I never really wanted to admit.”

Entering MAGA

Practically from the moment Trump entered his first presidential race in 2015, Logis was drawn to him.

“Here’s a person who it felt like was willing to take a flamethrower to the system, someone who would be an actual true disruptor in Washington,” he said. “I just saw him as the right person for that job at this moment in our history.”

Enthralled with Trump and viewing the prospect of Democrat Hillary Clinton winning the presidency as “an existential threat,” Logis said he ignored controversial statements and policy pronouncements.

“It sounds delusional to me today,” Logis said. “I had a lot of fear, and I listened to that fear and that was really how I got swept up into the entire MAGA movement and community.”

He volunteered on the campaign in Broward County, and on election night “felt vindicated and validated.”

“I thought at the time that our victory was akin to a second founding of America,” Logis said.

He began devoting more and more time to the efforts — “I never took an hour off” — writing freelance articles for right-wing websites, posting on social media, creating a podcast, and participating in events.

“I was a MAGA true believer,” he said. “We were the real Americans. Anyone against us were the fake Americans,” Logis said.

“I had adopted this approach of being this MAGA patriotic soldier in an existential war of good versus evil,” he added.

He contributed to ultra-conservative sites The Federalist and The Daily Caller. On social media, he once described Democrats as “malignant cancerous cells that seek to overtake healthy cells.”

He regrets those statements.

“The level of dehumanization that I stooped down to is something that I’m honestly ashamed and embarrassed of. But my works remain in the public realm because I am going to own them. I’m going to own up to them and I’m going to continue to take responsibility for them,” he said. “No one coerced me into supporting Trump. No one coaxed me. I take accountability for that.”

Making the exit

From 2015 through the 2020 election, Logis said he sometimes had glimmers of doubt, which grew stronger when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, hoping to prevent certification of Biden’s election victory over Trump.

Months later, those feelings intensified thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Logis said he voted for DeSantis, based largely on Trump’s endorsement, and liked the way the governor handled the first stages of the COVID pandemic.

By summer 2021, when the Delta wave of the pandemic was spreading infections and death, and he started looking at a broader range of news and information sources, including mainstream media outlets and often found himself saying, “I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize that had happened.”

Finally a year later, on Aug. 30, 2022, he publicly broke with the movement, publishing an online article declaring his split.

“I left one community, and I now felt a little bit like a man on an island. You divorced the community. Now what’s next?”

The organization

Leaving MAGA incorporated at the beginning of the year, is awaiting action from the Internal Revenue Service on its application for nonprofit status, and hasn’t yet started raising money.

He said organizers hope to hire staff, a plan they see as requiring raising $250,000 to $500,000 in the next six to 12 months.

So far, he said people are volunteering for roles as editorial director or working on visual presentations, social media and legal advice.

So far, people find Leaving MAGA through social media or when they come across a podcast or video. Someone who knew Vilchez read Logis’ social media posts and connected the two.

Though he has lived in Broward and Palm Beach counties since moving to Florida from New York in 2012, Logis said Leaving MAGA’s focus isn’t confined to Florida.

And, he said, it isn’t aimed at the November election.

It’s a longer-term effort because, Logis said, regardless of whether Trump wins or loses, the MAGA movement isn’t going away. “It’s going to stay.”

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.