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Former President Donald Trump rallied supporters on March 12, 2022 in Florence, S.C. Sean Rayford/Getty Images hide caption

Former President Donald Trump rallied supporters on March 12, 2022 in Florence, S.C.

Donald Trump hasn't said for sure if he will run in 2024. But he's having a hell of a lot of fun teasing it.

"We are going to take back that beautiful, beautiful White House. I wonder who will do that. I wonder, I wonder," he said to roaring applause at a Saturday rally in Florence, S.C.

More than a year after he left the White House, Trump is still the center of the Republican universe. And that's truest of all for his most committed fans. Thousands of rallygoers waited for hours on Saturday in frigid, gusty weather for Trump to speak.

"It shows the love people have to be out in this," said Rhonda Moore, from Columbia, in the rain as the temperature plummeted. It would still be more than 5 hours until Trump took the stage. She turned around to show off the flag she had wrapped herself in.

"It's President Trump dressed like a gladiator. So I thought I'd let him keep me warm," she said with a laugh.

A Trump rally is the easiest place to see just how much of a cult of personality has built up around Trump in the party. But as he works to sway Republican primaries and oust incumbents in the process it also is an opportunity to see not only how much he has changed the party, but how much he is shaping the future of the party.

RINOs draw lots of attention

Moore, holding her flag tightly around her head, said she doesn't consider herself a Republican, despite her support of Trump.

Donna Eiden sold merchandise dedicated to former President Donald Trump before his rally on Saturday. Sean Rayford/Getty Images hide caption

Donna Eiden sold merchandise dedicated to former President Donald Trump before his rally on Saturday.

"I classify as an American conservative. Republicans have been disappointing in some things that they've done. They're part of the swamp. Some of them, I think, they're RINOs," she said.

RINO meaning "Republican In Name Only" is a decades-old Republican epithet that has gained new currency in the Trump era. He uses it not so much to indicate a lack of ideological purity as to slam Republicans who've been critical of him. And it was used liberally at this rally.

"Unfortunately for the patriots of South Carolina, you currently have two atrocious RINOs they're bad people in the House, who went to Washington, sold you out and partnered with the Democrats to stab the Republican Party and frankly, to stab our country in the back," Trump said in his speech.

He was referring to Republican Representatives Nancy Mace and Tom Rice. Mace criticized Trump sharply after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and Rice subsequently voted to impeach trump.

In response, Trump is supporting their Republican primary challengers, and the rally was an opportunity to give them high-profile guest-speaking gigs. State Rep. Russell Fry is challenging rice. Former State Rep. Katie Arrington is challenging Mace.

"Let's not forget those RINOS. Let's not forget those turncoats," she yelled in her speech. "And you know who I'm talking about the Liz Cheney of the South, none other than Nancy Mace. Nancy Mace is who I'm here to take out. She turned her back on President Trump, she turned her back on me, and she turned her back on you."

When loyalty matters more than a voting record

Some voters in the district have taken this to heart, according to Jerry Rovner, the chair of the 7th-district Republican Party Congressman Rice's district.

"I'll never forget I was in a Lutheran church, and this little lady took her mask down," he said. "And I said, 'Yes?' And she goes, 'What are you gonna do about that Tom Rice - he voted against Donald Trump, you know.'"

Talking to Rovner, you understand just how much loyalty to Trump can outweigh ideology in the GOP these days.

"When I talked to Tom, he said, 'But I had 50,000 votes, I only did one thing,' and I said, 'Well, look: I'm 70 years old, I've never killed anybody, but if I did, I'd be a murderer,'" Rovner recounted.

Trump's meddling in primary elections has added a dose of chaos to how the party runs, according to Brendan Buck, a Republican strategist who worked as an aide to House Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner.

"Oh, this is entirely unprecedented," he said.

"It makes a lot of people really uncomfortable, that incumbents are seen as expendable," he added. "And of course, Donald Trump only thinks in terms of what's good for him or who's slighted him."

Indeed, Trump's endorsees were not the real focus of the rally; Trump was, with an hourlong speech that hit on all the usual points the lie that he won in 2020, for example, and insulting his perceived enemies.

And while he's not on a ballot, he had the potential to win still more support at this rally for a potential 2024 run. Robin Herbert, a dental assistant from Florence, came with a coworker and said she considers herself "liberal" ... but she added that her feelings about trump have been shifting recently.

"They were negative to start with," she said. "I thought he was just kind of harsh, but then the more I've heard him talk, I'm trying to feel a little different about it."

She elaborated why she's "trying" to come around to Trump in particular.

"I have not been happy with Biden at all," she said. "I just don't think he has been together at all. I think he's just I don't think he knows what he's doing."

Biden's approval rating has been underwater since fall. The upshot for the Republican party is that people like Herbert, who are disappointed with Biden, will either have to come around to Trump or get hooked by someone else.

For many rallygoers, the No. 1 alternative is clear: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. And it quickly became clear why: they see him and Trump as similar. Anthony Barber, a petroleum inspector from Somerville, talked about what he likes about the two men.

"They like to punch back. They don't sit there and take it, take it, take it show weakness," he said. "You know, to run a country, you've got to show strength."

Others echoed the comparison.

"He's just like Trump, he says it like it is," said Shannon Reynolds, an Air Force veteran from Sumter. "He puts people in their place when they're wrong. He calls them out, but he's there for the people."

Trump and DeSantis have traded swipes at each other in recent months. But DeSantis' popularity in this crowd, and the fact that it's because many Republicans see him as distinctly Trumpy, is also proof of Trump's power.

While Trump keeps wondering aloud whether he will be on the 2024 ballot, it's clear that he has created conditions for people like him to hold sway in the GOP for years to come.

In other words, the conditions are ripe for Trumpism to outlast Trump himself.

Barbara Sprunt contributed to this report.

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Braving rain and cold, Trump's supporters soak up hints of another run - NPR

Just a week after telling a couple hundred Republican donors, We have to do it, former President Donald Trump hinted again at a White House challenge in 2024 during in a campaign-style rally in South Carolina on Saturday.

We may have to run, Trump told told the cheering crowd. As he did last week in New Orleans and in previous appearances, the former president said Republicans in 2024 are going to take back that beautiful, beautiful White House. I wonder who will do that. I wonder. I wonder.

Trumps comments came a day after The Wall Street Journal released a poll, of 1,500 registered voters, which showed him deadlocked with President Joe Biden in a hypothetical rematch of 2020s contest.

Even though Bidens approval overall rating may have seen a bounce since his State of the Union address earlier this month withpollsters citing broad support for his tough sanctions on Russia over President Vladimir Putins unprovoked attack on Ukraine the Democrat remains tied with Trump, 45% to 45%, when voters were asked who theyd vote for in the next presidential election.

About 57% of respondents said they were unhappy with Bidens overall performance, compared to 42% approving figures similar to the Journals last poll in November.

The Journal noted, however, that Trump remains unpopular: a majority, 55% of respondents, held unfavorable views of him. About 15% of voters view both men unfavorably, but those voters back Biden 36% to 24% in a potential 2024 race, the Journal reported.

In addition to signaling hed throw his hat in the ring in 2024, Trump suggested Saturday that Republicans would triumph in midterm elections, projecting a slate of wins for so-called America-first GOP governors and lawmakers.

The Journal poll showed 42% of respondents said they were likely to vote for Republican candidates this November, compared to 29% for Democrats.

Biden has faceddeclining approval ratingssince notching several strong polls shortly after taking office in 2021.

His handling of the COVID-19 pandemic initially seen as a strong point as vaccinations ramped up Afghanistan withdrawal and rising inflation are often cited by pollsters as leading concerns among voters.

The White House counters by pointing to millions of jobs gained over the last year and Bidens signature of a bipartisan infrastructure package, a bill that should see at least$9 billion go toward Massachusetts projects.

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Donald Trump again hints at White House run in 2024, after poll shows him tied with President Joe Biden in re - MassLive.com

In Georgia, his preferred candidate, David Perdue, is struggling mightily to overtake Brian Kemp in the states gubernatorial race. This is the race that Trump takes especially personallyhe has long been angry about Kemps failure to step in and hand the states electoral votes over to him in 2020. In Alabama and Alaska, meanwhile, his hand-picked candidates are struggling financially against incumbents.

Pennsylvania, meanwhile, has been nothing short of a disaster for Trump. His original candidate for the Republican Senate primary, Sean Parnell, suspended his campaign in November amid domestic violence allegations. Trump stuck with him for weeks after the scandal surfaced, even pledging to host a fundraiser for Parnell at Mar-a-Lago that only was called off after Parnell dropped out of the race. But Parnells fortunes never recovered; Trump was reportedly furious after he backed out of the race. Trump has not yet picked a new candidate, which is currently a toss-up between teevee snake-oil salesman Dr. Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick.

In Missouri, he is in similar straits, as he weighs whether to endorse Eric Greitens, the former governor who resigned amid multiple scandals, including one involving revenge porn. (Greitens is perhaps the one candidate in America to whom Parnell compares favorably. Should Trump back him, he will truly be going where angels fear to tread.)

Part of the problem is that Trump is, in many cases, directly challenging incumbents who he believes have crossed him. As Politico observed last year, this can create resentment within the party, as Trump has focused on divisive, costly primary races at the expense of more certain successes in the midterm elections. To some Republicans, Politico reported, Trumps efforts to take down GOP incumbents in federal and state races are at odds with the partys interests in a midterm election where Republicans are within striking distance of recapturing control of Congress. While the party is focused on the November 2022 general election, Trumps gaze is fixed on the primary election season that begins next spring.

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Donald Trumps Crown Is Starting to Slip - The New Republic

Donald Trump has succeeded in refinancing Trump Tower. Thats no small feat. The Trump Organization has mountains of debt and become a financial pariah. The companys longtime accountant, Mazars, recently abandoned the Trumps amid a New York state investigation into whether the company systematically manipulated the value of its assets. The accounting firm said it could no longer vouch for the accuracy of a decades worth of Trump Organization financial statements, insisting those documents should no longer be relied upon.

But an internet bank called Axos has stepped up with a financial lifeline for the former presidents company, working with the Trump Org. to refinance Trump Tower for a cool $100 million, in a transaction first reported by Forbes. Eric Trump released a statement defending the deal, insisting his family company was very profitable and had no problem refinancing. (Axos declined to comment for this story. The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.)

Axos is an unusual lender, steeped in controversy. Its CEO and top investors have strong financial ties to the GOP. And Axos appears to be solidifying its position as the Trump-family banker, having previously stepped in as a financier for the family company of Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The deal comes at a time when the Trump Org. faces legal peril from city and state regulators in New York. It offers a window into the Trump companys financial standing, given that it had to turn to a politically connected online bank and not a major Wall Street institution to refinance the loan on the companys most iconic property. And the deal creates the possibility for yet another glaring conflict of interest should Donald Trump run for president again in 2024.

With headquarters in San Diego and Las Vegas, Axos is not a major financial player, with a market cap below $3 billion. (Bank of America, by contrast, is worth $327 billion.) The firm launched on July 4th, 1999, as one of the countrys first digital banks known then as Bank of the Internet USA. It went public in 2005 with the stock ticker BOFI.

The company has grown aggressively and left many aggrieved parties in its wake as it has sought to disrupt traditional banking. The firm rebranded in 2018 as Axos (with the even bro-ier stock ticker AX) in the wake of an SEC investigation and a spate of lawsuits. (The probe closed in 2017 without the regulator taking action.)

Axos core business is operating as a direct-to-consumer bank online, without costly brick-and-mortar branches. But Axos is also the quiet financial partner of other, bigger-name firms. It provides instant tax-return advance loans for H&R Block filers, as well as banking services to customers of Nationwide insurance. Last year, it bought E-Trades Advisor Services business.

But Axos also offers financial services to far-less reputable businesses drawing scrutiny from Congress as well as lawsuits accusing it of side-stepping state laws against usury. (More on that later.)

Greg Garrabrants, now 50, has led Axos since 2007 and runs his financial empire from La Jolla, in southern California, far from the countrys banking hub in New York. Yet despite its small size, Axos has paid its CEO, Greg Garrabrants, like a Wall Street titan.

In 2018, Garrarbrants earned a staggering $34.5 million more even than JP Morgans Jamie Dimon ($31 million) that same year, according to the Los Angeles Times. The massive payday reportedly arose from contract incentives resembling a hedge fund managers, earning Garrabrants a percentage of the companys returns when they rise above industry averages.

Despite grumbling about the pay package, top investors in the company have sung his praises. I would rate Greg Garrabrants a 9.9 on a scale of one to 10, Don Hankey told the Los Angeles Times. SEC documents show Hankey is the largest non-institutional investor in Axos; Hankey made his fortune with subprime auto loans, charging exorbitant interest to financially strapped customers who need a car.

Garrabrants and Hankey are both prolific donors to Republican candidates and campaign committees. Federal campaign records show Garrabrants giving heavily to the GOP in 2018, donating to a slew of Senate candidates including Missouris Josh Hawley, Texas Ted Cruz, and Tennessees Marsha Blackburn. He also supported the campaign of Devin Nunes, the former senior congressman and Trump ally who now runs Trumps social media company.

In 2020, though, Garrabrants ramped up Republican donations. He gave large donations to Trumps reelection campaign totaling almost $10,000. He also donated heavily to help Republicans retain control of the Senate, funding David Perdue, the Georgia Republican who lost his Senate runoff election to Democrat Jon Ossoff. He also backed failed Arizona Republican contender Martha McSally and Michigan Republican John James.

Hankey, the Axos investor, has given more than $100,000 to a slew of GOP causes, from numerous state-level parties to national figures including the 2016 presidential campaigns of Donald Trump, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Jeb Bush, as well as Mitt Romneys 2012 presidential campaign.

Trump Tower is not the first property linked to the former presidents extended family that Axos has brought into its portfolio. The bank has financed at least three real-estate transactions with Jared Kushners family enterprise Kushner Companies. In 2018, according to Bloomberg, the Kushners got a $57 bridge loan for a risky New Jersey real estate development that was largely backed by Axos (then BOFI). The Kushner family dealt with Axos again that same year, when the bank stepped in to take over the mortgage on a Brooklyn real estate deal that the Kushner Companys credit arm had first financed to the tune of $30 million. Last year, the Kushner Companies reportedly received $80 million in financing from Axos and the investment group Fortress to break ground on a development in South Florida.

This flurry of lending to the Kushner Company began when Jared Kushner was senior adviser to his father-in-law, then-president Trump. At the time, Jared had ostensibly stepped back from management of the family business, but, controversially, retained an interest in the companys finances.

As for Axos, the bank had just emerged from the shadow of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The regulator began investigating Axos then BOFI in 2015, during the Obama administration. The probe closed without action in 2017, during the Trump years, according to a timeline produced by Probes Reporter, an investment research firm that specializes in bringing SEC actions to light. The exact contours of the investigation and the reasoning behind the decision to close it have not been made public.

In 2017 Garrabrants reportedly blamed the federal scrutiny on frivolous lawsuits, short seller internet trolls, and fake news hit pieces.

The SEC investigation, in fact, appeared to grow out of a complaint by a company whistleblower, who also filed a federal lawsuit against Axos, alleging unlawful retaliation. (The lawsuit was filed in 2015 and is ongoing; Axos has countersued alleging privacy violations by the man they describe as a rogue employee. The case is heading to a jury trial.)

The whistleblower, Matt Erhart, was an internal auditor for the firm. And he discovered what he believed to be a raft of wrongdoing by the company and its CEO. According to his federal complaint Erhart sent two whistleblower tips to the SEC from his work computer, one alleging the company made a false response to an SEC subpoena denying the existence of records for a customer the bank, in fact, had a detailed file on and another regarding a suspicious loan customer.

The Erhart suit also contains other, far more explosive allegations. In doing an audit of senior executive accounts, Erhart claimed to have discovered that CEO Gregory Garrabrants was depositing third-party checks into a personal account, including nearly $100,000 in checks made payable to third parties, according to the suit. Erhart became concerned as to whether or not the CEO was reporting the income to the IRS.

Erhart also alleged that the largest consumer account at the bank was opened under the tax ID of Steven Garrabrants, the CEOs brother. The account had a balance of approximately $4 million, and the CEO was the signer on the account, the complaint contends. As Steven Garrabrants was a minor league baseball player earning poverty wages, the suit adds, Plaintiff could find no evidence of how he had come legally into possession of the $4 million wired into the account. From the foregoing, Plaintiff was concerned about whether CEO Garrabrants could be involved in tax evasion and/or money laundering.

Axos did not respond to questions about the lawsuit, but has previously waved off Erharts complaints as without merit, insisting that all of Garrabrants deposits were authorized and lawful. The companys countersuit describes Erhart as an internal auditor gone rogue, who vastly overstepped his job duties.

In addition to this peculiar financial activity from the CEO, Erhart alleged the bank was doing business with unsavory characters in potential violation of Bank Secrecy Act rules that require financial institutions to do due diligence on their customers. The lawsuit states that in his audit activity, Erhart was able to readily uncover information that many of the borrowers were criminals, even notorious criminals who put the bank at high risk for violating the Bank Secrecy Acts Anti-Money Laundering Rules. The customers, he alleged included very high level foreign officials from major oil-producing countries and war zones.

Axos has been hounded by lawsuits related to Erharts allegations. Litigation originally filed by the Houston Municipal Employees Pension System morphed into a class action suit from investors who believed theyd been misled by the bank. In their lawsuit, they claimed that representations portraying BofI (now Axos) as a careful, prudent institution masked a troubled entity that resorted to high-risk lending practices to fraudulently boost its loan volume and earnings.

The allegations of troubling conduct, the suit continued, are informed by firsthand witness a number of whom describe senior management (particularly Garrabrants) as improperly pressuring or directing audit personnel to alter or bury their reports and findings so as to hide compliance issues from regulators.

The litigation has dragged on for years, but a settlement is now reportedly pending in which Axos will pay $900,000 to settle the charges but not admit wrongdoing.

Axos dodgy business practices have allegedly continued in recent years.

Many states have sought to crack down on payday lenders and other exploitative financial firms by imposing interest rate caps on loans, but a loophole in U.S. law has exempted federally chartered banks from these state limits.

In turn, thats led to the rise of a Rent-a-Bank scheme, in which unscrupulous lenders who seek to charge exorbitant interest rates partner with a federally chartered bank to fund their loans, and neatly avoid state usury limits.

Axos has been an eager participant in such schemes spurring both lawsuits and congressional ire. A 2020 lawsuit against Axos and its partner World Business Lenders accuses the companies of conspiring to sell a mortgage at a staggering 138 percent APR. The litigation accuses Axos and WBL of willful and deceptive acts and practices that violated New Yorks Criminal Usury laws.

In a separate case that also inspired litigation a restaurant owner got saddled with a WBL/Axos loan with a 268 percent APR that also reportedly featured a 30 percent prepayment penalty.

Last year, the Axos lending practices caught Sen. Elizabeth Warrens attention, for a loan the company had sponsored for WBL in Massachusetts at a 92 percent interest rate. In a hearing, Warren turned the screws to the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Axos federal regulator for not bringing enforcement actions against the scandal-ridden bank:

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The Totally Dodgy Backstory of the Bank that Just Refinanced Trump Tower - Rolling Stone

Remember those Donald Trump Rallies? Well, he just hosted the very first one in Florence, South Carolina since the Russian invasion in Ukraine began. A rally filled with Donald Trump supporters by the name of 'Save America' was the place where all the greatest hits from Trump's talking points emerged again. He called out the 'fake news' media and blamed them for challenging his mental state, he reminded no wars took place between the United States and any other country during his four-year term. But more importantly, Doland Trump kept talking about Russian president Vladimir Putin and how he would prevent World War III if he was still in power. Trump somehow thinks he could've convinced Putin to give up on his plans to invade Ukraine, a plan he has planned for decades.

That whole World War III concept is one of the scariest phrases one can hear in the 21st. century, both Putin and President Joe Biden keep mentioning it in speeches. None of them think about the people who hear what they are talking about, and neither does Donald Trump. He is convinced that the current conflict in which Vladimir Putin wants to bring Ukraine back as part of Russia wouldn't be happening if he only had a chance to sweet talk him with his charm. During the rally in Florence, a lot of his supporters seem to think the same way simply by hearing all the cheering after every single one of his statements. Also, Trump referred to President Joe Biden as 'phisically and mentally challenged' during his speech while saying he has failed in his first 13 months in office.

This is what Trump said about Biden's response to Russia in this conflict: "This could lead to WWIII. I see what's happening, because if you think Putin's going to stop, it's going to get worse and worse. He's not going to accept it, and we don't have anybody to talk to him. You had somebody to talk to him with me. Nobody was ever tougher on Russia than me. I'm the one who stopped the pipelines. I stand as the only president of the 21st century that Russia did not invade any other country and neither did anyone else. We had peace through strength because the world was calm because America was strong. The fake news said my personality is going to get us into a war ... but actually my personality is what kept us out of war."

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Donald Trump thinks only he can prevent World War III by talking to Putin - Marca English