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| |  POLITICO illustration by Bill Kuchman/Photos by AP, Getty Images | As the GOP primary pack first started to form, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis surged into second place. The pugilistic, socially conservative Republican’s overwhelming popularity in Florida caught the attention of GOP donors around the country. He seemed capable of taking up Donald Trump’s mantle — a younger man without all the baggage of the former president’s many scandals. But DeSantis’ support in national polls is just half of what it used to be. His campaign staff has suffered shakeups and layoffs. And a narrative of DeSantis as a cold, awkward partisan has emerged, placing the man who once seemed so similar to Trump in sharp contrast with the original MAGA politician, who expertly wields a showmanship forged on reality TV to whip up an unshakably loyal base. A poor showing at next week’s debate in Milwaukee could calcify DeSantis campaign. Unless Brett O’Donnell can turn it around. A former Liberty University debate coach, O’Donnell has built a reputation as a kind of guru of rhetorical battle. He’s worked with George Bush, Mitt Romney and John McCain. “He’s William Shakespeare and Vince Lombardi rolled into one,” said Ward Baker, a senior adviser to Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn. Her race against Democratic former Gov. Phil Bredesen had looked like a toss-up, but after O’Donnell coached her into a strong debate performance, she clobbered Bredesen, winning with double digits. “Most of the dozen current and former O’Donnell colleagues who spoke to POLITICO described him as a sharp strategist whose soft-spoken manner belies a killer political instinct, although that edge has caused rifts with other staffers in multiple of the past campaigns he has worked for,” writes reporter Cameron Joseph in this week’s Friday Read. “If past is precedent, O’Donnell might push DeSantis to stay relentlessly on the attack against his opponents, with pointed barbs aimed at exciting the GOP’s base.” Will it be enough to reinvigorate DeSantis’ campaign? Read the story. | | | |  | “Another boring, establishment attack from Super PAC-creation ‘Robot Ron’ who is literally taking lame, pre-programmed attack lines against me for next week’s debate.” Can you guess who tweeted this about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
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| | |  Illustrations by Nate Kitch for POLITICO; Photos by Chase Sutton/POLITICO | Can You Taste “Anti-Woke”? … Bud Light’s short-lived partnership with transgender social media sensation Dylan Mulvaney brewed up a conservative backlash, which in turn brewed up a beer of its own: Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right “100 percent woke-free” beer. It’s one of many products that have popped up in a veritable online bazaar of so-called “anti-woke” products. These days, you can “own the libs” by scoring some (apparently cisgender?) chocolate, sipping on pro-gun coffee or applying a refreshing layer of certified conservative “hyaluronic acid/argireline facial moisturizer.” All this raised important questions to POLITICO’s Calder McHugh and Derek Robertson. Like: What does this say about the state of corporate politics amid the shifting battle-lines of our hyper-partisan culture war? And, more importantly: Is that beer any good?
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Russian leader Vladimir Putin looks on during the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics at the Beijing National Stadium on Feb. 4, 2022 in Beijing, China. | Matthew Stockman/Getty Images | The Trump-Proof Way Ukraine Could Win … Ukraine has three options for winning Vladimir Putin’s war, writes Democratic former New Jersey Congressman and State Department official Tom Malinowski. There’s of course the possibility of total military success, but with U.S. support uncertain ahead of next year’s presidential election and Russia seemingly willing to sacrifice untold numbers of lives to sustain its invasion, that’s a bleak prospect at best. Then there’s the option of a diplomatic deal, like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s peace plan — but Putin has never once ended a war at a negotiating table. That leaves option three: Join NATO by next year, before the election, bringing the country under the protection of Article 5. “Meanwhile, sanctions on Russia would remain; its economic and military strength would continue to erode; and Putin could only watch as his frozen assets abroad are drawn down to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction,” Malinowski writes.
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| | There are now four pending criminal cases against Donald Trump following the indictment this week by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has alleged that Trump, along with 18 other defendants, engaged in a criminal scheme to change the outcome of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results. Here are some notes to get you through the weekend without having to read the nearly 100-page indictment. (From Ankush Khardori) - Maintain a healthy degree of skepticism about the RICO charge against Trump and his co-defendants. Prosecutors sometimes file splashy RICO charges that generate lots of flattering press coverage and then fall flat on their faces at trial. - Don’t put much stock in the DA’s proposed March 4 trial date. Large cases with lots of defendants move slowly even in the best of circumstances. More defendants means more lawyers, more legal issues and court disputes, and more procedural and logistical challenges that could introduce significant delays. - Make note of perhaps the biggest surprise in the case — not the RICO charges or even the prosecution of co-defendant Rudy Giuliani (the man once known as “America’s Mayor”), but the inclusion of Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Meadows may have dodged charges from the Justice Department — so far at least — but his luck evidently ran out. We’ll see if he succeeds in trying to move his case to federal court with the goal of getting it dismissed. - Need a cinematic reference for a court case with 19 defendants and 41 charges in total? You’re welcome.
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Ron Filipkowski poses for a portrait outside of his office in Sarasota, Fla., on Friday, June 2, 2023. | Photos by Tina Russell for POLITICO | Trolling for the Old-School GOP … Offline, Ron Filipkowski is a low-profile, 54-year-old criminal defense attorney arguing cases over offenses like drug possession or drunk driving. But online, the former Republican has become a savant of trolling the GOP, sharing a non-stop stream of political dirt and criticism to his 750,000-some followers on the website we used to call Twitter. Remember the Mehmet Oz crudité disaster? You can thank Filipkowski for making it viral. He also picked up on Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance’s telling Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast that he did not “care what happens to Ukraine one way or another” — a pivotal preview into the GOP’s shift on foreign policy. And his clip of Ron DeSantis — a prime Filipkowski target — clashing with a reporter over his time serving at Guantanamo Bay as a Navy lawyer has over 3.8 million views. “In an era of siloed social media, where the left and right burrow into their own echo chambers … Filipkowski is filling a new kind of role,” writes national political correspondent Meridith McGraw. Bolstered by his cred as a former Republican, his “clips frequently go on to become campaign headaches, and ahead of 2024, he plans to do even more damage.”
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| |  POLITICO illustration/Photos by St Martin's Griffin, Prime Video | The POLITICO Reporter in Red, White and Royal Blue Did What?! … In the hot new rom-com Red, White and Royal Blue, a Democratic president’s son falls for a closeted English prince after the two of them fall into a wedding cake. But that’s far from the zaniest aspect of this movie based on the novel by Casey McQuiston. Without spoiling for you, let’s just say that the electoral politics — not to mention the, ahem, journalism — in this movie take place in another universe. “Shows like ‘The West Wing’ and ‘House of Cards’ may have stretched the imagination, but the political situations in those shows resembled reality,” writes film critic Lena Wilson. “In contrast, the political world of Red, White and Royal Blue is borderline alien. The result is a gay rom-com that’s merely good — when it could’ve been amazing — and a political drama that’s outright bonkers.”
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outlandtrader, ebay | Donald Trump isn’t the first presidential candidate to get into trouble in Atlanta, Georgia. In fact, one White House hopeful was not only indicted, but convicted and jailed there. In 1920, Eugene V. Debs, a prominent labor leader and former state representative from Indiana ran for president while serving time for “sedition.” (As a pacifist, in 1918, he had urged resistance to the draft.) Still, he secured nearly a million votes in 1920, while running from his cell as a socialist. And he cleverly marketed himself as a martyr in ways that might not be unfamiliar to Trump voters. This pin, asking Americans to vote for “Convict No. 9653,” is for sale on eBay for $299.99. (From historian Ted Widmer.)
| | | **Who Dissed answer: It was conservative up-and-comer Vivek Ramaswamy — who is apparently DeSantis’ prime target on the debate stage in Milwaukee next week. That’s according to a fat stack of strategy documents posted online by Axiom Strategies, a conservative political consulting and PR outfit owned by the top dog at DeSantis’ favorite Super PAC, Never Back Down. One document advocates for DeSantis to “take a sledgehammer” to Ramaswamy, perhaps with a Trumpian nickname: “Fake Vivek” or “Vivek the Fake.” What else would you like to see in the Weekend? Tell us at politicoweekend@email.politico.com | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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