LARA TRUMP WANTS GOP TO ‘START PLAYING CHESS’
Lara Trump is more than former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law.
She’s also his pick for co-chair of the Republican National Committee. And that’s a job she says she’s ready and willing to take on, if given the chance.
“It feels, for a long time, like the Democrats have been playing chess and we’ve been playing checkers,” she told The Epoch Times in an exclusive interview.
But she wants the GOP “to be the opposite, to be steps ahead of them, and on our toes, and ahead of the game, and facing forward the whole time.”
The key to victory, she said, is ballot harvesting.
“We need to have the biggest legal ballot harvesting operation this country has ever seen.”
Ballot harvesting, legal in some states, is the third-party collection and delivery of voters’ absentee or mail-in ballots to election officials.
The practice is controversial as some fear it enables fraud—a lingering concern for many Republicans in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. But Trump said it was time for the GOP to start “attacking the game differently.”
Other strategies she said she would implement include encouraging voters to vote early, rather than on Election Day, and an expansion of the RNC’s training for poll watchers.
But first on the agenda will be restoring donors’ faith in the cash-strapped committee.
“This is really about reestablishing trust for the voters and the people who donate their money to the RNC,” she said.
–Samantha Flom and Janice Hisle
TRUMP, BORDER LOOM LARGE AT CPAC
Two subjects dominated the first full day of the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington: national security and former President Donald Trump.
Kicking things off, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) issued a fiery call for a return to American dominance and sovereignty.
“America in a dominant position across the globe, means the best thing for the people of the world who desire freedom and peace, who want to actually grow an economy who want their children to be raised up,” he said. “A globe where China is dominant is a globe that it is to the detriment of human freedom.”
But Donalds stressed that the U.S. government’s first job, before anything else, is to “secure its people.” And in that vein, the congressman said President Joe Biden has a decision to make.
“Decide Joe Biden: Which country matters more to you—the border of the United States, or the border of Ukraine?”
Donalds has backed Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. And when asked if he would accept an invitation to join the ticket, he suggested that he would.
Other prominent speakers who took to the stage included Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Dr. Ben Carson, and Lara Trump—all vocal supporters of President Trump.
Tuberville, leaving no doubt as to that fact, urged attendees to “do all you can to get everybody to go vote” for the former president.
“We got to understand that no matter what happens in the next 10 months, he has got to be reelected because he’s the only thing that’s going to save us from losing this great country that we live in.”
National security and Trump were also on the minds of attendees, who expressed that hope that a second Trump term would yield a secure border.
“We’re a nation of immigrants,” attendee Barry Hinkley told The Epoch Times.
“We all know that we all came for opportunity, whether it was us or our ancestors. However, we have to have it orderly and have a productive people in it. Right now, it’s very disorderly, and I’m questioning the intent of a lot of the people coming here.”
–Samantha Flom
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- Biden welcomes U.S. governors to the White House.
- CPAC continues in Washington.
- Trump heads to South Carolina, where he will deliver a speech at a gala sponsored by the Black Conservative Federation. The speech is on the eve of the South Carolina GOP primary election on Saturday.
As Trump sails toward the Republican presidential nomination, some are floating former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as a potential candidate for the No Labels ticket. Trump shares his thoughts on that possibility with The Epoch Times’ Nathan Worcester.
The United States is shifting away from its traditional, in-person voting system to one conducted almost exclusively by mail. This has led many voters to question whether election integrity is being sacrificed on the altar of convenience. The Epoch Times’ Kevin Stocklin asks the experts.
A trove of leaked documents from a Chinese cybersecurity contractor emphasizes the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party, The Epoch Times’ Frank Fang reports. The information exposed included a list of entities victimized by the Chinese regime’s hacking activities.
A delegation of congressmen led by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) is visiting Taiwan to strengthen ties and show solidarity with the island amid rising tensions with China. The visit comes as a growing number of Americans espouse support for defending Taiwan militarily.
Members of the European Parliament’s defense subcommittee are now checking their phones for spyware after two members’ devices showed signs of hacking, Politico reports. The discovery comes on the heels of an internal review that found the institution’s cybersecurity has “not yet met industry standards.”
