Free Republic

Steve Bannon has described Ron DeSantis' recent world tour, which saw the Florida governor visit stanch U.S. allies Israel, Japan, South Korea and Britain, as "humiliating."Trump's former White House chief strategist made the comment during a monologue on his War Room podcast, which was broadcast on right-wing network Real America's Voice.DeSantis is widely believed to be weighing up a possible 2024 presidential bid, with polling indicating he is the second most popular choice with Republican voters, after Donald Trump. It is common for perspective presidential candidates to embark on trips abroad, in a bid to garnish their foreign policy credentials.Addressing...

UK captains of industry lambast ‘low-wattage’ US presidential hopeful.One U.K. business figure said DeSantis “looked bored” and “stared at his feet” as he met with titans of British industry in an event co-hosted by Lloyd’s of London — the world’s largest insurance marketplace.“He had been to five different countries in five days and he definitely looked spent, but his message wasn’t presidential,” they told POLITICO. “He was horrendous.”

Ron DeSantis is due to spend Friday in Britain on the last leg of a world tour aimed at enhancing his foreign policy credentials before an expected run for the Republican nomination. Formally, DeSantis will meet the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, in his role as governor of Florida, the third most populous US state. Nigel Farage’s new rightwing Reform UK party is also trying to secure a meeting. Despite being greeted by the prime ministers of Japan and South Korea on earlier legs of the trip, he won’t meet the British prime minster, Rishi...

Ron DeSantis could run for president without resigning his post as governor of Florida, according to an election bill amendment filed Tuesday by a Republican state senator. The amendment to the elections bill, SB7050, would clarify qualification requirements for political offices and exempt “Persons seeking the office of President of Vice President of the United States” from state rules that require political office holders to resign their current position in order to qualify as a candidate for another office. The strike-all amendment was filed Tuesday afternoon by state Senator Travis Hutson, a Republican from northeast Florida, whom DeSantis endorsed last...

As Gov. Ron DeSantis continues his tour of Asia, Israel and the United Kingdom, cracks may be emerging in his domestic donor fortress.The latest indications of attrition come from a New York Times article, in which one of the Governor’s biggest backers is said to be “evaluating” the 2024 Primary landscape.According to the Times, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin has been alienated by DeSantis’ framing of the Ukraine war as a “territorial dispute,” in a statement provided to the now-canceled Tucker Carlson show on Fox News. Additionally, the state’s new six-week abortion ban, which DeSantis messaged about tentatively during political speeches,...

Former President Trump on Monday mocked what he called an “emergency Round the World tour” from Gov. Ron DeSantis as the Florida Republican takes off on a multi-stop international trip amid 2024 speculation. “The ‘Consultants’ are sending DeSanctus, and demanding he go immediately, on an emergency Round the World tour of U.S representative population countries, like South Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Israel, in order to up his game and see if he can remove the stain from his failing campaign,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Mitt Romney's week-long international trip resulted in unrelentingly negative coverage from the big three broadcast networks, a stark change from the glowing press awarded to then-candidate Barack Obama's world tour in 2008. While "MSM" pr0mod Obama rock star (from the Associated Press: "It's not only Obama's youth, eloquence and energy that have stolen hearts across the Atlantic...."), Romney endured a focus on gaffes and the trivial.

MIDI - LIVING ON A PRAYER

Geopolitics: Jetting around the world to drum up support, Iran ally Hugo Chavez says he's winning a bid to join the U.N. Security Council. As a showdown with Iran looms, is the world crazy enough to vote him in? If this is Wednesday, it must be Angola on the Chavez world tour. Already the Venezuelan president has visited China, Malaysia and Syria, and last month he blew through seven other countries. As he goes, he splashes out cash and preferential trade deals. He has now spent more than 365 days in his seven-year presidency overseas, but nothing like this. It...

Morgan Stanley & TIME Magazine present Faces of Ground Zero World Tour of Life-sized Portraits May 14 (Tuesday) - June 7 (Friday) location: One Market Street (Near the Embarcadero) San Francisco, CA time: Monday - Friday » 7 am - 6:30 pm Saturday » 10 am - 6 pm Sunday » Closed admission: Open to the Public (Free) for more info: Visit their site at www.morganstanley.com 58 life-sized photographs of emergency workers, survivors and relatives of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks, will open to the public at One Market Street. The photographs were taken with the world's largest...