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Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds will support Ron DeSantis for president



Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds will endorse Ron DeSantis for president at a rally in Des Moines on Monday, sources close to both governors told NBC News.

Reynolds’ endorsement is a major boost for the Florida governor, who has gone all-in on Iowa since launching his bid for the GOP nomination in May. DeSantis is currently 27 points behind former President Donald Trump in the Hawkeye State, according to the latest NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll — and he’s also tied for second place with rival Nikki Haley , the former United Nations ambassador catching up. to DeSantis after spending months pitching himself to GOP voters as the party’s leading alternative to Trump.

Now, DeSantis has the support of the state’s popular governor as he tries to climb back up the ladder and challenge Trump in the Jan. 15 caucuses, the first contest of the 2024 GOP presidential race. In the August poll NBC/Des Moines Register/Mediacom, more Iowa Republicans viewed Reynolds favorably — 81 percent — than any of the presidential candidates, and his support could increase DeSantis’ chances of pulling off an upset.

DeSantis’ campaign believes that beating Trump in Iowa — or at least getting close — is the way to prevent the former president from running away with the Republican nomination, and DeSantis is pooling most of his resources to try to achieve this objective. In October, the campaign moved a third of its staff from Tallahassee, Fla., to Iowa. It also used a significant portion of its available cash to make a $2 million ad buy in the state.

Iowa is also by far DeSantis’ most visited state as a candidate, and the Florida governor visited 87 counties before visiting all 99 in the state – a “full Grassley” in campaign parlance. Iowa, named for the state’s senior senator, Chuck Grassley.

Reynolds is putting her political capital on the line after initially saying she would remain neutral in the GOP primaries. She told the Des Moines Register in February that she wanted to maintain a level playing field for all Republican candidates seeking to run against President Joe Biden.

“If I give my opinion, I don’t know if they will feel welcome,” she said at the time.

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But Reynolds then changed her mind, telling Fox News in August, “I might change my mind later,” as she interviewed several of the candidates during her “Fairside Chats” at the State Fair in Iowa.

The Trump campaign, which has criticized Reynolds throughout 2023, criticized her again after announcing her support for backtracking on her initial plans to remain neutral. The Trump campaign also argued that Reynolds’ support “won’t make a difference in this race,” citing polls showing that few people are likely to shift their vote based on support. Trump’s super PAC also conducted a poll showing that few people changed their votes in the Iowa caucus after being asked about a hypothetical Reynolds endorsement.

The endorsement marks a major departure from tradition: Iowa governors have typically stayed on the sidelines before the caucuses. An approval last occurred in 1996, when then-Gov. Terry Branstad threw his support behind Bob Dole — although Branstad also backed out in 2016 to say he hoped Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas would be defeated before that year’s caucuses. Branstad’s move backfired as Cruz won the caucuses that year, a sign that big-name support is no guarantee in a campaign.

Reynolds appeared with most of the candidates vying for the nomination — but her repeated friendly appearances with DeSantis began to gain popularity over the summer. She has appeared alongside the governor at least eight times this year, before and after he announced his candidacy for president. Reynolds also appeared alongside DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis, at a “Mamas for DeSantis” campaign event in July.

On stage, the two governors maintain a friendly relationship, calling each other by their first names and full of praise for their legislative achievements. They sat side by side at last month’s “Cy-Hawk” football game between the University of Iowa and Iowa State University.

That kindness drew the attention — and ire — of Trump, who sat in a luxury box above both governors at the same game, after he attacked Reynolds in a Truth Social article in July.

“I opened the governorship to Kim Reynolds, and when she fell behind, I ENDORSED her, had big rallies and she won,” Trump posted, referring to how Reynolds, then the state’s lieutenant governor, rose to Iowa’s top job when Trump nominated Branstad to be ambassador to China.

“Now she wants to stay ‘NEUTRAL’. I don’t invite him to events! Trump added.

Before Reynolds, two Republican state officials in Iowa supported other presidential candidates. State Attorney General Brenna Bird threw her support behind Trump, while state Treasurer Roby Smith backed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

Dasha Burns is an NBC News correspondent.

Abigail Brooks

Abigail Brooks is a producer for NBC News.

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Sea of ​​Thieves meets Monkey Island: Ironically, Ron Gilbert knew nothing about it


A new free Monkey Island crossover episode has been announced for Sea of ​​Thieves. But Ron Gilbert, original creator of the Monkey Island titles, was privy to late.

The new Monkey Island crossover for Sea of ​​Thieves was recently announced during the Xbox Game Showcase. The Legend of Monkey Island will be released monthly for free, beginning July 20, 2023, and will tell a new story featuring the characters and voice actors of the Monkey Island series.

After Steam, Return to Monkey Island is now also on GOG

Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert was inaugurated late

In the new Monkey Island crossover for Sea of ​​Thieves, players will meet Guybrush Threepwood, tough pirate bride Elaine, Ghost Captain LeChuck, Murray the demonic talking skull and other well-known characters from the series. Explore open-ended variants of Mêlée and Monkey Island, as well as solve point-and-click style puzzles adapted to Sea of ​​Thieves’ first-person view. Although the three “episodes” were developed in cooperation with Lucasfilm Games, Ron Gilbert, the original creator of the Monkey Island adventures, was probably initiated into the project very late.

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Gilbert was asked via Mastodon if he was involved in any way with the newly announced crossover. At the same time everything happened “behind the back”. In another post, he explained to another user that “everything was done without his knowledge or input”. Some fans were surprised and expressed their frustration accordingly. To smooth things over, developer Terrible Toybox later reached out to SamaGame, stating, “Disney informed him about the project as a courtesy, but the game was well into development at the time and he didn’t have a chance to get involved contribute meaningfully.” Let’s hope for the fans that enough Monkey Island mood can still arise.

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The National Court proposes to try the former president of Popular Ángel Ron and PwC for fraud in the 2016 capital increase

The judge of the National Court José Luis Calama has proposed trying the former president of Banco Popular Ángel Ron, twelve other directors and the consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for crimes of fraud against investors and accounting falsehood in the 2016 capital increase to which The investors came in “deceived”, since the financial statements of that year and 2015 “did not reflect the true image of the balance sheet or the assets”.

The head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 4 agrees to the provisional file for former president Emilio Saracho as he had not had any intervention in the violations of the accounting regulations, but, on the contrary, says the judge, he took measures to check and evaluate the bank balance sheet.

It should be remembered that the case began in October 2017, four months after the bank was resolved by the Single Resolution Board (JUR), making it one of the longest instructions of the National Court.

The 178-page resolution considers it proven that on May 25, 2016, the Board of Directors of Banco Popular, chaired by Ángel Ron, decided to carry out and execute the capital increase agreed upon at the General Shareholders’ Meeting on April 11. . Prior to that meeting, a call for the Board’s Audit Committee took place that same day, whose second item on the agenda was “the approval of a favorable report for the capital increase.”

The resolution indicates that the Audit Commission issued a report favorable to the expansion, without having any detailed written study that could be the subject of debate. The external auditors of PricewaterhouseCoopers were present at that meeting, and they did not warn the members of said commission of any problem in the bank’s accounts (annual-2015- and quarterly-2016-) in view of the capital increase.

Regarding the capital increase brochure, the order explains, “consciously altered financial information is offered (which hid enormous provision deficits from investors) taken from the annual accounts for 2015 (audited by PwC) and the financial statements. as of March 31, 2016 (with limited report from said auditor).” Had the provisions not reflected in the balance sheets of Banco Popular – as of 12/31/2015 and 03/31/2016 – been reflected in them, the instructor adds, “the accounting result of the profit and loss account would have shown at least 2,500 million losses, instead of the profits declared” by the entity, apart from substantially altering numerous ratios of the accounts, which are used by investors for their financial analysis.

The magistrate emphasizes that PwC did not record any qualifications in its audit report on the 2015 annual accounts, nor in the interim financial statements as of March 31, 2016.

Instructions prohibited to the commercial network

Regarding the marketing of the capital increase, the magistrate reports that veiled instructions were given to the commercial network, by order of the CEO Francisco Gómez, in order to finance the purchase of shares for many clients, despite the fact that it was expressly prohibited. in the Risk Policies Manual of Banco Popular. The amount financed, he adds, was not subtracted from the regulatory capital that affected the bank, which is why a distorted figure was offered to the market.

The order also refers to the Thesan structure, consisting of the creation of companies in Luxembourg with the sole purpose of channeling BP credits to these companies with the aim of subsequently transferring those loans to certain Popular borrowers, in order to avoid that they were classified as doubtful credits and, therefore, avoid the provision of hundreds of millions of provisions. The hidden provision deficit in BP’s 2015 annual accounts remained during the 2016 interim financial statements and was only partially corrected, it says, in the 2016 annual accounts.

Crimes of fraud against investors and accounting falsehood

The judge explains that the crime of swindling investors could have been committed through the capital increase that Banco Popular marketed in 2016. He points out that he has no doubt that the investors who came to subscribe to said increase were deceived, since The consolidated annual accounts of the financial entity for the year 2015 and the financial statements for the first quarter of 2016 did not reflect the true image of the balance sheet or equity of said Entity. These accounts, according to the magistrate, hid a significant deficit in provisions.

Calama describes the bank’s operation, which consisted of refinancing a relevant part of large borrowers in a situation of non-payment of installments, granting them terms that avoided their formal default or using instrumental corporate structures based in Luxembourg in order to maintain viable loans that in reality were doubtful

The magistrate indicates that if the doubtful credits had been correctly classified, Popular would have exceeded 2,500 million in accounting losses, a figure that is accredited “only taking into account the deficits detected in the two OSI inspections and computing the Thesan deficit.”

PwC Conscious Collaboration

According to the judge, the conscious collaboration of the external auditor (PwC) contributed to this situation since it did not record any reservations in its audit report of the annual accounts of Banco Popular for the year 2015 or in the limited report regarding the financial reports of the first quarter of 2016.

The head of the Court of Instruction Four also attributes to those investigated a crime of accounting falsehood perpetrated successively in the annual accounts of 2015, in the interim financial statements of 2016 and in the annual accounts of this last year.

No responsibility of supervisors

Calama explains that the actions of the supervisors (CNMV/BdE/BCE) have been left outside the walls of the investigation, since from the beginning of the criminal investigation this was established since it is not up to the judicial body to determine whether the supervision system worked correctly or not. and adds that other areas will have to consider whether or not they lived up to their important institutional mission.

Regarding the possible civil liability of Banco Santander, the judge explains that the operative part of the order does not mention this possibility and that, as suggested by the Criminal Chamber, it will be at the time of issuing the order to open the trial. orally when addressing this issue.