like the conservative movement, just like the republican party. they became hacks, nothing more, nothing more than hacks for donald trump. shameless. i mean, my god, i couldn t believe what i was seeing. i know that two of my close friends that were there on the ground floor who have passed away would have been so disappointed to see how they cheapened themselves so badly for a guy that was the biggest spending president in the history of the united states. why do i say this? i say this because we heard about the koch network yesterday. by the way, the koch brothers, charles koch, never made any secret of the fact they had no use for donald trump. club for growth completely different. now, club for growth, they re inviting a lot of potential
beat trump. most eyes on governor desantis, unproven national commodity. we ll see about that in the months ahead. and we know republicans are going to jump in. nikki haley next week will be the first. the bigger the field is a sense that it ll be better for trump. it is telling that some of the interest, powerful voices in the republican party want nothing to do with him. interesting. i think the operative word i heard was permission structure. jim, i mean, you know how the donor class is in both parties, okay? you know what i mean. i remember early on when barack obama was a young senator. this guy is never going to beat hillary clinton. there s no way. this was in 2007. the clinton machine is going to just be and then i saw his first financial report. i was like, whoa, okay now.
presidential candidates to its annual donor retreat next month in florida. one notable exception, donald j. trump. wow. and the group s president, a guy i know, guy i served in congress with, came in together with him in 94, david macintosh, said the republican chances of taking the white house in 2024 would be diminished if donald trump were the nominee. that is a big change. the new york times reports that according to mcintosh, the party should be open to another candidate, suggesting the party lost too many elections with trump as the face of the party. my god, my god, they re starting to look up and notice they lost in 2017 because of trump, 2018 because of trump, 2019 because of trump. they lost in 2020 because of trump. they lost in 2021 because of trump. they lost in 2022 because of trump. if trump is their nominee, they ll lose in 2024.
elections. he ll never win the suburbs of atlanta again. he ll never win the suburbs of philly again. he ll never win the swing voters that he needs to win. so the question is whether they re stupid enough, whether these donors are stupid enough and short-sighted enough to race to donald trump the second he starts winning republican primary contests. because that s not the issue. this guy can win republican primary contests. he ll just lose them another four years in the white house. that s exactly the point david mcintosh, who runs the club for growth, made yesterday in the new york times piece, which is that it s not necessarily a principled objection to donald trump. they just said, look at the last three elections. he s lost them all. he dragged us down. the club for growth last fall in the midterm elections ran against donald trump in a lot of races and won some of them and lost some of them. they ve now decided, as you say, one of those deathbed conversions, that you ll take