A survey from Yahoo! and YouGov found that nearly half of people polled would rather see Trump as the 2024 Republican nominee over DeSantis.
Among Republicans and Republican-leading Independents, Trump won 49 percent of the vote and Ron DeSantis won 31 percent. An additional 21 percent were unsure whether they preferred Trump or DeSantis.
In this poll, Trump also out-performed Republican Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Only 19 percent of people polled thought Cheney should run for president in 2024, while 51 percent said she should not.
When asked to choose between those three possible candidates, Trump won 50 percent of the vote, DeSantis had 32 percent and Cheney had six percent, with 13 percent unsure.
Cheney is the vice chair of the House Select Committee investigating the events of the January 6 Capitol riot and recently lost her primary election to a Trump-backed candidate.
The Save America PAC donated $650,000 to support the costs of the two portraits, a donation that was reportedly documented in a mid-July filing with the Federal Election Commission. The portraits are set to be housed in the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian’s chief spokesperson told CNN.
The National Portrait Gallery has raised private money for presidential portraits for decades, but the Trump portraits will be the first to receive funding from a PAC, the spokesperson said.
It has not yet been publicly announced when the portraits will be completed or who is painting them.
The Save America PAC was launched before Trump left the White House and has continued to send donation calls to supporters in the months since. The PAC has thus far raised more than $100 million, according to an OpenSecrets tally.
Trump will appear at a rally for Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, and state senator Doug Mastriano, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, on Sept. 3 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
The rally, organized by Trump’s Save America PAC, will be Trump’s first major public appearance since the FBI executed a search warrant at his home to seize classified documents on Aug. 8.
His last rally was on Aug. 5 in Waukesha, Wisconsin for his gubernatorial endorsement Tim Michels. Michels defeated Mike Pence-backed Rebecca Kleefisch to secure the Republican candidate spot and will face incumbent governor Tony Evers in the fall.
Trump also recently spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, TX on Aug. 6, two days before the raid. The former president also appeared before the New York Attorney General for a testimony in a civil investigation on Aug. 10.
A recent NBC poll found that 57 percent of registered voters in the United States said the investigations into Trump’s alleged wrongdoings should continue.
About 40 percent of voters said the investigations should stop.
When broken down by party, 92 percent of Democrats, 61 percent of independents and only 21 percent of Republicans think the investigations continue.
This poll was conducted between August 12 and 16, days after the FBI raided Trump’s home.
Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, said in the court order that he spoke with Trump about his “intentions” surrounding declassification statements made earlier that month.
In one tweet Trump posted on October 6, 2020, Trump wrote that he “fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”
That tweet didn’t mean any additional documents needed to be declassified, Meadows said.
“The President indicated to me that his statements on Twitter were not self-executing declassification orders and do not require the declassification or release of any particular documents,” including those related to the investigation carried out by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Meadows said in his signed court order.
Instead, Trump’s comments were meant to grant the attorney general the authority to review “intelligence activities” regarding the 2016 presidential election, Meadows’ statement continued.
John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney, who each held the chief of staff role before Meadows during Trump’s time in the White House, also questioned recent comments from Trump’s team about a “standing order” in his administration regarding the declassification of documents.
The letter, dated May 10, was sent in response to requests Trump’s legal team made to delay the FBI’s review of records NARA obtained from Mar-a-Lago in January. It was sent about two months before the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
In the letter, NARA said it had “ongoing communications” with Trump’s team last year regarding “what appeared to be missing Presidential records,” culminating in 15 boxes of records being sent to NARA earlier this year. Sensitive information was found in those boxes, prompting NARA to inform the U.S. Department of Justice about where those documents were held after Trump left office, the letter said.
The FBI was then given permission to review the documents within those 15 boxes of records received in January of this year, NARA wrote. The agency then explained that it was rejecting calls to prevent federal agencies from reviewing the documents through the Trump legal team’s argument that the documents were protected by executive privilege.
The former president’s son-in-law was responding to a question posed by Fox & Friends’ Steve Doocy about recent reports regarding classified documents federal agents reportedly obtained from Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago. According to The New York Times, Trump had more than 300 documents at Mar-a-Lago from his time as president that officials have now removed.
Kushner told Doocy he is “not familiar” with specifics regarding the types of documents found at Mar-a-Lago before citing past media coverage of a meeting between Trump administration officials and the Russian ambassador. Kushner suggested the focus of the news coverage at the time was on something that “never really happened.”
“And so, I just think you have to be very careful with what you read, and obviously just wait for the facts to develop,” Kushner said.
After the FBI raid of Trump’s home on August 8, the Justice Department is continuing its investigation.
The government acquired security footage on June 22 from the hallway outside the storage area at Trump’s home. But after the FBI raid of Trump’s home on August 8, the DOJ is continuing its investigation.
The Justice Department is now looking to obtain footage from the weeks leading up to the FBI raid earlier this month, according to a report from the New York Times.
People close to the matter told the newspaper that authorities are still questioning how Trump handled the classified documents before the FBI search.
Some of the footage from that hallway “raised concerns for investigators,” people familiar with the matter told the NYT.
Some footage showed people moving boxes in and out of the area, appearing to change the containers some documents were held in.
This initial security footage, along with witness interviews, led the DOJ to draft the request for a search warrant.
Trump may be considering releasing the footage himself.
His son, Eric Trump, said the August footage captured federal agents in parts of Mar-a-Lago that they were not authorized to search after unsuccessfully requesting that cameras be turned off. Trump suggested the agents may have planted evidence during the raid.
Trump’s former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham has argued that he does not actually want the surveillance footage to be released, telling CNN’s Erin Burnett last week that the footage would have already been released if he had wanted it to be public.
On Monday evening, Trump endorsed Republican Nicole Malliotakis, who currently serves as the representative for the state’s 11th congressional district.
Malliotakis is “doing a fantastic job” representing her district, Trump said in his endorsement.
“A fierce advocate for the NYPD and NYFD, Nicole is working hard to Uphold the Rule of Law, Strengthen our Military, Support our Veterans, Grow the Economy, Protect our First and Second Amendments, and Secure our Border,” Trump said. “Nicole Malliotakis has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”
On Monday, Trump also shared what looked like endorsements for some of the Democrats running in New York’s 10th and 12th Democratic congressional primaries.
In one Truth Social post, Trump described Rep. Jerrold Nadler as “the dynamo that Washington needs” before saying his rival is “both physically and mentally stronger than him.” Trump’s next post then addressed Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who “accepted many of my campaign contributions in the good old days, and she has my Complete and Total Endorsement.”
Nadler and Maloney are facing off on Tuesday in New York’s 12th congressional district Democratic primary.
In another Truth Social post, Trump appeared to endorse Dan Goldman, who was an investigator in Trump’s first impeachment probe and is now running in New York’s 10th Democratic congressional district primary. Goldman “was in charge of the Impeachment Hoax, and even though he lost big, and was devastated by this loss, he was very fair, honorable, and kind,” Trump wrote.
Goldman’s campaign did not interpret Trump’s endorsement as authentic, according to MarketWatch.
According to a New York Times report, the National Archives took more than 150 documents marked as classified in January. Among these materials were documents from the CIA, the National Security Agency and the FBI spanning a variety of topics of national security interest, a person briefed on the matter told the NYT.
This led the Justice Department to launch its criminal investigation into Trump.
The next batch of documents were taken when the DOJ met with Trump aides at Mar-a-Lago in June and the rest were seized during the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month. Federal agents took 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified and top secret.
In total, the government recovered more than 300 documents marked as classified from Trump since he left office, according to the NYT.
Trump called the FBI investigation into classified documents at his home an “unnecessary, unwarranted and un-American break-in.”
He said the FBI requested to turn security cameras off, prevented his attorneys from observing what was taken in the raid and took documents that covered attorney-client and executive privilege, which he said “is not allowed.”
“We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home,” Trump said in a statement posted on his Truth Social account. “All documents have been previously declassified.”
In the motion, Trump’s lawyers are asking the court to appoint a special master to oversee the handling of the materials taken in the raid.
He also wants the DOJ to turn over a “real” inventory of what was taken, implying that federal agents planted evidence during the raid.
“We are further demanding that the DOJ be forced to turn over a REAL, without ‘plants; inventory of my property that was taken and disclose where that property is now located,” he said, adding that he wants all items “wrongfully taken” from his home be immediately returned.
Trump also said the search warrant the FBI executed was “wrongful” and “overbroad” and accused the Judge who signed off on it of being “bias and animus” towards him.
“This Mar-a-Lago Break-In, Search and Seizure was illegal and unconstitutional, and we are taking all actions necessary to get the documents back,” he said.
Trump said he and his lawyers would have given the government the documents “without the necessity of the despicable raid of my home” and handed them over to the National Archives until they are required for his future presidential library.
