Power Up: Trumpism with ‘polish’: DeSantis is having a moment — at least for now

RISING SON: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) rock star reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend was only a surprise to those who haven’t been watching him closely.   

As national health officials have touted science-based approaches to mask-wearing and closing businesses, DeSantis has zagged with his Trump-inspired handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Florida, earning plaudits from the base and boosting his profile as a possible 2024 contender. Florida has never had a mandatory mask mandate.

• At CPAC, the Florida governor described his state as an “oasis of freedom” during the pandemic.
• Key quote: “We look around in other parts of our country, and in far too many places, we see schools closed, businesses shuttered and lives destroyed. And while so many governors over the last year kept locking people down, Florida lifted people up.”

DeSantis’s coronavirus calculus and adversarial relationship with the press has played out largely in his favor, elevating his profile and GOP popularity. The governor’s approval ratings with Floridians have rebounded after plummeting last year. The 2024 buzz intensified last weekend after CPAC’s straw poll showed DeSantis winning 43 percent of participants’ support without Trump in the field.

• “There’s not a single politician out there right now that has the type of gut level political instincts that DeSantis has in terms of understanding the direction of this party,” a GOP operative who has worked with DeSantis told Power Up.
• The operative said DeSantis can present a more “polished” GOP platform “to a wider array of voters as [Republicans] try to build upon the coalition that Trump cobbled together.”
• “He understands how to articulate a vision that resonates with what the new coalition is: less country club and more working class voters,” the source added. 

Script flipped: Despite over 31,000 people dying from the virus in Florida since the start of the pandemic, DeSantis took a victory lap at CPAC for his handling of the pandemic. The recent allegations surrounding embattled New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) have only bolstered DeSantis’s stature in the party, according to GOP operatives who note the press script has flipped for the two 2024 hopefuls. 

• “The coverage of him compared to Cuomo has been good for his brand with conservatives,” a GOP Florida operative told us, referencing the scandals that have marred Cuomo’s reputation as a marked shift from the glowing narrative of last year. “The reality is that throughout this entire year, there’s been this idea from the national press that Ron’s handling of the pandemic as a whole has been a disaster, and you look at the numbers and they don’t bear that out.” 

DeSantis also serves as the poster child of Republicans who have embraced Trump without carrying his political toxicity and baggage. 

As the New York Times’s Elaina Plott noted in her dispatch from CPAC, “The attendees said they were most drawn to Republicans who both pledged fealty to Mr. Trump and appeared to showcase a distinct political identity — figures like [DeSantis]; Gov. Kristi L. Noem of South Dakota; Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri; and Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state.” 

The Floridian’s favorability ratings are even higher than Trump’s in the battleground state: 

• “In Florida, recent polls of Republicans show him with higher net favorable ratings than Donald Trump — notable findings in a populous battleground state where the former president just won by the biggest margin of any presidential candidate since 2004,” Politico’s Marc Caputo reported last month. “Those numbers also suggest DeSantis is more popular than the state’s two senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, both of whom have presidential ambitions as well.”
• A GOP survey from pollster Tony Fabrizio showed DeSantis “is tied with former vice president Mike Pence among likely supporters of Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 Republican primary.”

But is DeSantis already flying too close to the sun? Democrats are calling for an FBI probe into a “pay to play” scheme over vaccination distribution to wealthy communities where big GOP donors live: “As Florida’s eldest residents struggled to sign up to receive their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, nearly all those aged 65 years and older in a wealthy gated enclave in the Florida Keys had been vaccinated by mid-January, according to an emailed newsletter obtained by the Miami Herald.”

• The Herald’s David Goodhue and Mary Ellen Klas report “since DeSantis started using the state’s vaccine initiative to steer special pop-up vaccinations to select communities, his political committee has raised $2.7 million in the month of February alone, more than any other month since he first ran for governor in 2018, records show.”
• “Last month, a high-end community that Republican fundraiser Pat Neal helped develop was chosen by DeSantis to host a pop-up vaccination clinic near Bradenton. Only people from two Zip codes were eligible to receive the vaccine at the Lakewood Ranch site, and names were chosen by Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh, who included herself on her vaccine selection list.”
• “The effort has brought scrutiny from DeSantis’ critics as the state’s vaccine distribution appears to be inequitable. By the end of February, only 5.6% of those who’ve been vaccinated in the state are Black, even though Blacks account for 17% of the state’s population, state records show.”

LIGHTS, CAMERA, STIMULUS! “The Senate voted Thursday to open debate on President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, as Democrats moved forward with no GOP support after failing to win over a single Republican senator on the new president’s first major legislative initiative,” our colleagues Erica Werner, Jeff Stein and Tony Romm report. Vice President Harris broke a 50-50 Senate tie to proceed with the debate. 

• “As soon as the Senate voted to proceed to the bill, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) insisted on a full reading of S.B. 628, which commenced immediately and [is] expected to drag into the early morning hours Friday.”
• What to watch: “GOP unity against the procedural motion suggested that no Republican will vote in favor of the legislation on final passage, which will come after hours of debate and an amendment free-for-all that could drag into the weekend.”
• Republican lawmakers want to reel in the wild card. “Senate Republicans are leaning on Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to reject Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan, hoping they can get unanimous GOP opposition and prevent Democrats from claiming the bill is bipartisan,” Politico’s Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine report.
• But Murkowski has other plans. “I’m going to look and see what’s in it. I’m looking at some of the things that will provide a level of relief for a state like Alaska.”

Thank you, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.): 

HAPPENING TODAY: The marathon “vote-a-rama” begins in short order. 

• “Before the Senate can vote on final passage of the bill, there will be an open amendment process called a “vote-a-rama” with amendments expected from all sides. Johnson said he was trying to ensure as many amendments as possible were voted on, dragging out the process as long as possible,” per Jeff, Erica and Tony. 
• “Republicans were also working on amendments aimed at getting some Democratic support. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said he was crafting an amendment aimed at targeting state and local funding to places that actually experienced revenue losses. Some state budgets have shown greater resilience than expected.” 

FBI ARRESTS TRUMP APPOINTEE IN CONNECTION WITH CAPITOL RIOT: “The FBI on Thursday arrested Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, on charges related to storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, marking the first known instance an appointee of former president Trump [faces] criminal prosecution in connection with the attempt to block Congress from certifying Biden’s victory,” Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports. 

• Klein, 42, “worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and was then hired at the State Department. As of last summer, he was listed in a federal directory as serving as a special assistant in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.”

The New York Times’s Katie Benner has more details on Klein’s arrest: “The F.B.I. said in a court document that it received a tip about Mr. Klein in January, on the day after it included his image in a poster seeking information about several people seen in the crowd that had stormed the Capitol. A tipster provided investigators with Mr. Klein’s Facebook account, and a different witness later contacted them to say that he knew the man in the poster as ‘Freddie Klein,’ according to the document.”

• “Based on this information, the F.B.I. determined that when Mr. Klein allegedly attacked Congress on Jan. 6 to help Mr. Trump unlawfully maintain power, he was still employed by the State Department and possessed a Top Secret security clearance, the bureau said in the document.”

MORE: “Federal investigators are examining records of communications between members of Congress and the pro-Trump mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol, as the investigation moves closer to exploring whether lawmakers wittingly or unwittingly helped the insurrectionists,” CNN’s Evan Perez reports. 

• “Justice Department officials have assigned more than two dozen prosecutors to delve into more complex questions, including possible funding of insurrectionists and whether political figures, including lawmakers and staff, aided the attack.”
• “The data gathered so far includes indications of contact with lawmakers in the days around January 6, as well as communications between alleged rioters discussing their associations with members of Congress.”
• “In one case against an alleged leader of the right-wing paramilitary group the Oath Keepers, a defendant has claimed she was enlisted to provide security to legislators and others in their march to the Capitol.”

SECURITY CONCERNS CONTINUE: “U.S. Capitol Police have requested a 60-day extension of some of the 5,200 National Guard members activated in the District in response to security threats and the Jan. 6 assault on Congress, opening the door to a military presence in the nation’s capital into spring,” our colleague Dan Lamothe reports. 

• “The request is under review at the Pentagon, and the Guard has started checking states for availability of their troops, in an effort to be prepared if final Defense Department approval is given,” AP News’s Lolita C. Baldor reports. 

HAALAND’S HISTORIC NOMINATION ADVANCES: “The Senate Energy Committee advanced Rep. Deb Haaland’s (D-N.M.) nomination to head the Interior Department to the full chamber on Thursday, setting up a vote that’s expected to make her the first Native American to join a Presidential Cabinet,” Politico’s Ben Lefebvre and Anthony Adragna report. 

• “Murkowski was the only Republican to approve Haaland in the narrow 11-to-9 vote. The entire Democratic caucus and two Republicans, Murkowski and Susan Collins (Maine), are expected to back her, cementing her confirmation,” our colleague Darryl Fears reports. 
• History vs. oil and gas: “So, I have really struggled through this one,” Murkowski said. “I have decided to support this nomination today, to support the first Native American who would hold this position, and with the expectation that Rep. Haaland will be true to her word — not just on matters relating to Native peoples, but also responsible resource development and every other issue.”

Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), the first Native American nominated to lead the Interior Department, gave her opening statement at her confirmation hearing on Feb. 23.

• “The July report said 6,432 nursing-home residents had died.”
• “State officials now say more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities have died from covid-19 since March of last year.”
• “The extraordinary intervention, which came just as Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act yet known in what critics have called a months-long effort by the governor and his aides to obscure the full scope of nursing home deaths,” the New York Times’s J. David Goodman and Danny Hakim report.

The Cuomo crisis. “In the past week, Cuomo’s once seemingly unshakable grip on power has been buffeted by a wave of scandal,” per Goodman and Hakim. 

• “Three women have accused the governor of inappropriate conduct, including workplace sexual harassment.” 
• “Lawmakers [have] moved to strip him of the emergency powers he had been granted during the pandemic.”
• “Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have opened a separate investigation.”
• “A lawyer hired to represent Cuomo and his aides, Elkan Abramowitz, has begun interviewing senior staff members about the nursing home report.”

Former aide Charlotte Bennett told her story last night on CBS Evening News: