Nearly three dozen former Trump officials held a conference call last Monday to discuss undermining their former boss’s influence in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Among those who participated were former White House communications directors Alyssa Farah Griffin and Anthony Scaramucci, former White House chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, former Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Pence Olivia Troye, according to CNN, which first reported the news.
Griffin, now a CNN commentator, became a target of the president after she claimed that he knew he lost the 2020 election. On Monday she publicly encouraged Republicans to challenge Trump.
‘DeSantis should run,’ she wrote on Twitter Monday, quoting news that Trump had called the Florida governor ‘dull.’ ‘So should Pence, Pompeo, Haley, Cotton, Tim Scott, Sununu, Hogan, etc. Credible Republicans with governing experience should challenge Trump. There’s zero reason to nominate Trump again when R’s have a bench & Biden is polling in the 30s.’
Troye told DailyMail.com the call was a ‘preliminary discussion,’ and the group plans to convene again soon.
‘We are very concerned about the ongoing trends we are seeing by some of the more extremists following in Trump’s rhetoric and footsteps,’ she said. ‘It’s bigger than just Trump.’
Troye, who also served on the White House coronavirus task force and left the Trump administration in August 2020, made headlines the following month when she encouraged Republicans to vote for Biden due to Trump’s ‘flat out disregard for human life’ with the pandemic.
She claimed the Trump suggested maybe the pandemic was a ‘good thing’ because he would no longer have to shake hands with ‘disgusting people.’
Former Department of Homeland Security official Elizabeth Neumann, and former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs were also on the call. Miles Taylor, author of the famed ‘Anonymous’ New York Times op-ed and former DHS chief of staff, led the efforts.
Taylor told CNN that ideas for sabotaging Trump included ‘shining a light’ on his corporate contributors or targeting each of the candidates he endorses in state and local elections for defeat in the primary and general elections.
Kelly, who said he was only able to ‘monitor’ about 10 minutes of the hour-long call, is shying away from the idea of endorsing specific candidates.
Nearly three dozen former Trump officials reportedly held a conference call Monday to discuss undermining their former boss’ influence in the 2022 and 2024 elections
![Among those who participated were former White House communications directors Alyssa Farah Griffin (above)](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/18/17/53075153-10414633-Among_those_who_participated_were_former_White_House_communicati-m-15_1642527446737.jpg)
Among those who participated were former White House communications directors Alyssa Farah Griffin (above)
![Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, above, who served as White House chief of staff, also briefly tuned in to the call](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/18/17/53080211-10414633-image-a-8_1642527283419.jpg)
Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, above, who served as White House chief of staff, also briefly tuned in to the call
One thing the group agreed on: their efforts are way behind those of the former president, who with a $115 million war chest has come out in full force with rallies, endorsements and campaigning.
Trump has bestowed his blessing upon almost 100 candidates who have agreed to go along with his claims of election fraud in the 2020 election.
Trump-endorsed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has made the president’s election fraud claims front and center to her campaign, and it won her the president’s endorsement, an invite to Mar-a-Lago and the former president stumped for her in Florence, Arizona over the past weekend.
Asked by NPR if candidates must ‘press [his] case’ of election fraud in order to win an endorsement, Trump pointed to Lake. ‘She’s very big on this issue. She’s leading by a lot,’ Trump said.
One individual said there was unanimity on the call that ‘this cannot just be a professional trolling operation, putting out ads like the Lincoln group.’
![Olivia Troye](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/18/17/53080191-10414633-image-a-13_1642527351715.jpg)
![Elizabeth Neumann](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/18/17/53080177-10414633-image-m-12_1642527347592.jpg)
Former Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Pence Olivia Troye and former Department of Homeland Security official Elizabeth Neumann were also on the call
![Miles Taylor, author of the famed 'Anonymous' New York Times op-ed and former DHS chief of staff, led the efforts on the call](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/18/17/53080149-10414633-image-a-14_1642527356651.jpg)
Miles Taylor, author of the famed ‘Anonymous’ New York Times op-ed and former DHS chief of staff, led the efforts on the call
![Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci also participated in the call](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/18/17/53080233-10414633-image-a-16_1642527685238.jpg)
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci also participated in the call
The Lincoln Project was a band of so-called anti-Trump GOP strategists who fought for Democrats in the 2020 election with bill boards across the D.C. area and beyond. The group’s influence fizzled amid allegations of workplace abuse and infighting and a number of bizarre stunts, including placing five fake backers of then- Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glen Youngkin carrying tiki torches at a Charlottesville campaign stop.
Taylor concurred. ‘We all agreed passionately that letters and statements don’t mean anything,’ he told CNN. ‘The two operative words are ‘electoral effects.’ How can we have tangible electoral effects against the extremist candidates that have been endorsed by Trump?’
The group has plans in the works to hold another call next week.
Former national security adviser John Bolton was not on the call, but his top aide Sarah Tinsley joined to share new polling from Bolton’s super PAC finding that Trump’s hold over the party was waning.
A November 2021 Marquette University poll finding that 60% of Republicans still want Trump to run again and 73% say they would vote for him if he were the nominee.
Trump has dropped a series of unsubtle hints that he intends to run for the presidency again, but has not come out with a formal announcement.
‘I believe 2024 will be even more important,’ the former president said at his first rally of 2022 in Florence, Arizona. ‘That is the year we are going to take back the House, we’re going to take back the Senate and we are going to take back America. And in 2024, we’re going to take back the White House.’
GB News’ Nigel Farage asked Trump during a sit down at Mar-a-Lago in December, ‘Why on earth would [you] consider going into that hell again?’
‘So I love our country,’ Trump said. ‘If you love the country you have no choice. It’s not a question.’
‘This is a wonderful, beautiful life,’ Trump said of his lavish existence in Palm Beach. ‘But I like that [being president] too because I was helping people. That’s why I did it and I think you’ll be happy in the future too because that’ll be your next question. You’ll be happy.’
And Trump this week has set the stage for all-out war with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his longtime ally.
Trump reportedly said the popular governor has ‘no personal charisma’ and a ‘dull personality’ as rumors swirl the ex-president is angry DeSantis hasn’t declined to challenge him for the GOP presidential nomination.
DeSantis, however, has told his inner circle that Trump’s ‘expectation that he bend the knee is asking too much,’ the New York Times reported.
The governor blasted back at Trump’s criticisms, accusing the ex-president of being ‘uncharacteristically out of step with the hard-line elements of his party’s base’.
Sources close to the former president who have recently talked to him about the governor said Trump has grown increasingly irked by DeSantis in recent months, with Trump beginning to voice his frustrations to those in his inner circle.
Trump is said to be annoyed that DeSantis has refused to rule out running against him if he launches a second White House bid. The Florida governor is extremely popular in Republican circles, and is widely seen as a leader who can push policies popularized by Trump, but without the same level of drama or baggage.
‘In the context of the 2024 election, he usually gives DeSantis a pop in the nose in the middle of that type of conversation,’ a source who recently spoke to Trump about DeSantis told Axios.
The president also claims ‘there’s no way’ DeSantis would have ever been elected Florida governor without his support.
The two are among the most popular Republican figures in the country, and with Trump eyeing another presidential run in 2024, many political pundits believe he is irritated by DeSantis’ interest in running against him and his growing popularity.
Trump is said to be further annoyed that DeSantis won’t say he will not run against the former president if he did opt to launch another White House bid.
‘I wonder why the guy won’t say he won’t run against me,’ Trump has questioned to several associates and advisers, according to the Times.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk