Citadel founder and mega GOP donor Ken Griffin on Monday labelled former President Donald Trump a "three-time loser," and expressed his hope that Trump would opt out of seeking the Oval Office again.
Though Trump proceeded to announce his 2024 candidacy on Tuesday evening, Griffin's broadside is another signal of broadening Republican discontent with Trump.
Coming from someone with a net worth of around $29 billion, this particular critique packs some wallop. Griffin gave almost $60 million to federal GOP candidates in this year's elections. That made him the third-largest individual donor, behind conservative Richard Uihlein ($62 million) and leftist George Soros ($128 million.)
At Bloomberg's New Economy Forum in Singapore on Monday, the 54-year-old Griffin offered this pointed view of a Trump's renewed presidential aspirations
"I really do hope that President Trump sees the writing on the wall. He lost in 2020. We lost Georgia because of his behavior in the Senate race in 2020...that's the second loss. And then this year, Republicans lost the Senate because the Trump-backed candidates in the Senate races were rejected by American voters.
That's a three-time loser, and I'd like to think that the Republican party's ready to move on from somebody who's been, for this party, a three-time loser."
markets: "I really do hope that President Trump sees the writing on the wall."
— N. G. A. Choffat (@ngachoffat) November 16, 2022
Earlier at the Bloomberg #NewEconomyForum, Citadel’s billionaire founder Ken Griffin had hoped the former president would not run for the White House https://t.co/BvelhNCf9J pic.twitter.com/HvfeHwOB18
We're happy to see Griffin dredge up Trump's bull-in-a-china-shop fiasco in the 2020 Georgia Senate runoffs. In case time has dulled anyone's recollection of Trump's moronic, self-aggrandizing and unprincipled blunder that helped give the Democrats full legislative control of Congress, first recall that both of the state's Senate seats were at stake that year.
At the time, Congress was considering a $900 billion Covid relief package, which Georgia incumbent Republicans David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler had both voted for. Trump called the bill a "disgrace" -- and not because it was wasteful. No, to Trump, the stimulus checks weren't big enough, and he pushed for increasing them from a "measly $600" to $2,000.
In doing so, he not only aligned himself with Pelosi, AOC and other stimulus-happy Democrats, Trump effectively turned the Georgia runoff into a referendum on whether voters would rather receive $600 or $2,000 for doing nothing. They elected both Democrats, and got their extra $1,400 a few months later.
Back to the present day, Griffin earlier this month said he'd welcome a run by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis: "He has a tremendous record as governor of Florida, and our country would be well-served by him as president,” he told Politico.
Griffin backed the DeSantis reelection campaign with a cool $5 million, making him the lockdown-defying governor's top donor. Griffin has Democratic donations in his history too. In 2008, he raised money for both John McCain and Barack Obama, and he gave a half-million dollars to Joe Biden's 2020 inauguration.
Since then, though, he's steered decisively to the right, and given new emphasis to political contributions in addition to his philanthropical ones. As he explained to Politico:
“Charitable giving was the lane that I was most focused on for many, many years of my life as a means of moving society to a better place. Watching so much of what I did on the philanthropic side be undermined by poor policies from our political sphere has pulled me more into politics with a portion of my resources.”
This summer, Griffin famously moved his residence and Citadel's headquarters from Chicago to Miami. Leading up to his move, Griffin had periodically expressed his mounting frustration with the state and the city -- in particular, its rampant crime and feckless political leadership.
Praising his new home last week, Griffin said, "When you’ve got great schools, a great environment and your streets are safe and clean, that’s when you’ve got a place you want to live in and call home.”
(Article by Tyler Durden republished from Zerohedge.com)
