Trump appears to have 'made peace' with a former antagonist: report
In 2023, the conservative Club for Growth spent millions of dollars on ads attacking former President Donald Trump's economic record. The group was clearly hoping that someone other than Trump would be the Republican Party's 2024 GOP presidential nominee.
But with Trump moving closer and closer to the nomination, Trump and Club for Growth President David McIntosh, according to Politico's Alex Isenstadt, "appear to have made peace."
"After being at war with each other for the past year," Isenstadt reports in an article published on February 12, "Trump and Club for Growth President David McIntosh met for dinner Wednesday evening, (February 7), at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, according to two people with knowledge of the sit-down. McIntosh is also flying with Trump on Saturday to South Carolina, where the former president is campaigning ahead of the state's February 24 Republican primary."
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Isenstadt adds, "The rapprochement represents the latest turn in the ongoing, hot-cold relationship between Trump and the conservative organization. Tensions had been especially high between the two sides over the past year, when a Club for Growth-affiliated outside group waged an unsuccessful multi-million-dollar TV ad campaign aimed at sinking Trump in early primary states."
The Politico reporter describes what appears to be a Trump/Club for Growth truce as "another indication of how the GOP is consolidating around Trump as he establishes a stranglehold on the party's nomination."
"Early (in 2023)," Isenstadt notes, "McIntosh told reporters that Republicans should be open to another candidate besides Trump in the 2024 election. Shortly after, the Club for Growth did not extend an invitation to Trump to a donor retreat it was hosting, though it did invite other Republican presidential candidates. After the Club for Growth launched its anti-Trump affiliate in July 2023, Trump blasted the group, calling it the 'Club for No Growth.'"
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Read Politico's full report at this link.
