Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds removes all Trump mentions from campaign website

Byron Donalds Scrubs Trump Mentions from Campaign Website

Florida Representative and Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds removed all mentions of Donald Trump from his campaign website on Tuesday, distancing himself from the president for the first time.

According to archived versions of the page saved by the Internet Archive Project, Donalds's campaign materials were previously filled with references to Trump. The site had prominently featured a bright yellow banner reading "ENDORSED BY PRESIDENT TRUMP!" and urged visitors to "Chip in to Support Trump Endorsed Byron Donalds."

Donalds also removed an image of himself and his wife, Erika Donalds, standing beside Trump.

The president's endorsement has been significantly downgraded on the site, now appearing as just one voice among many conservative supporters. A side-scrolling placard currently reads: "RUN, BYRON, RUN!" — quoting Trump's 2025 comments reworking a famous line from Forrest Gump.

Shift in Campaign Priorities

Donalds also refashioned his campaign priorities, moving away from MAGA talking points, according to The Miami Herald:

• Previously: "Enact the Trump Agenda" was listed as Donalds's chief priority.
• Now: The top line only mentions affordability.

• Previously: The second priority promised to "Fight Illegal Immigration."
• Now: Donalds pledges to "stop taxpayer handouts to illegal immigration," demoted to a tangential issue under his seventh priority, "Law and Order."

Background on Donalds's Ties to Trump

The three-term Florida lawmaker had worked extensively to curry the president's favor:

• Voted against certifying the 2020 election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
• Repeatedly spread the MAGA conspiracy of election fraud in those states, despite state officials finding no evidence.
• Refused to declare whether he would have certified the 2020 results if he were in former Vice President Mike Pence's shoes.
• At a 2024 Axios event, Donalds said he would not certify future election results if he believed state officials had violated election laws.

In 2024, Donalds's ex-wife Bisa Hall spoke out against him for grandstanding for the president, calling him "very opportunistic" and saying his role as a "poster child" for the MAGA movement "makes some people feel better about Trump."

Kalshi Seeks Approval for Margin Trading

Kalshi, one of the largest U.S. prediction markets, is asking the Trump administration to help attract larger bettors.

In a filing with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Tuesday, Kalshi's internal clearing house, Kalshi Klear, sought approval to offer margin trading on event contracts, CNBC reported.

Key Details

• Margin trading would allow traders to borrow funds from the company to gain or lose more than they invest, potentially exposing investors to a dangerous level of financial risk.
• The addition is viewed as crucial for attracting larger institutions that already use margin trading on traditional stocks and futures.
• Kalshi generates revenue from transaction fees on each wager; bigger bettors mean bigger bets and more revenue.

Regulatory Context

State gaming commissions have historically limited credit given to bettors on sporting events contracts. However, prediction market companies have argued that their sports-related products are derivatives and therefore subject only to CFTC regulation. CFTC Commissioner Michael Selig has readily come to the defense of prediction markets.

A Kalshi spokesperson told CNBC that the company would not allow margin trading on sports-related event contracts, culture markets, or "mention" markets. Instead, margin trading would apply to markets with expiration dates far in the future. The service would only be available to traders using Kalshi Klear.

Trump Proposes Renaming Artificial Intelligence to "Super Intelligence"

President Trump suggested changing the name of artificial intelligence to "super intelligence" during his address at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

"The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now," Trump told the audience, according to a video posted by reporter Aaron Rupar.

"Here and after officially called 'super intelligence' changing the name and that the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake. It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake, it's actually amazing, but we have to be careful," Trump said. "In fact, it is exactly the opposite of what it purports."

Trump said all U.S. government documents "and hopefully the world's" would be changed to use "super intelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence."

"In other words, welcome to the new world of super intelligence — S.I. Let's see if that goes. It sounds much better, it is much better, and it's much more accurate," Trump said, before adding: "Let's see if I have any power. Maybe I do, and maybe I don't. We're gonna find out pretty soon."

Origin of the Idea

Trump appears to have gotten "super intelligence" from a poll he posted on Truth Social on Monday, asking followers: "Which name do we like for the new phenomena — SUPER INTELLIGENCE VS. SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE? President DONALD J. TRUMP." "Super intelligence" won the unscientific poll by 30 percent.

Lawsuits Filed Over Trump's "Truth API" Program

President Trump and his aide Natalie Harp are targets of a new lawsuit over the "Truth API" program, which offers Truth Social users early access to posts from government officials for $100,000 per month.

The suit was filed last Thursday by watchdog groups American Oversight and Campaign for Accountability. The groups argue that the president is running a pay-to-play scheme, offering information that impacts global markets and policy decisions to the highest bidder.

"Information the Trump Administration disseminates on Truth Social through its official accounts can have significant consequences for the global economy," the suit reads.

Harp is named as a defendant, recognized as "the primary White House staffer responsible" for posting for Trump on Truth Social.

"President Trump and members of his administration are exploiting their offices to benefit a private company owned by the President, his family members, and allies," said Samuel Davis, an attorney at Gerstein Harrow, LLP working on the suit. "This brazen scheme is illegal many times over and is an affront to the basic principle that the government exists to serve the people, not to enrich cronies and insiders."

On Monday, the city of San Francisco filed its own lawsuit, arguing that Truth API is a "corrupt business scheme" violating federal insider trading laws and California's Unfair Competition Law. That lawsuit targets Trump Media & Technology Group and does not mention Harp specifically.

Trump has yet to respond to either lawsuit.

Trump Tells CNN Not to Cover His U.N. Speech

President Trump attempted to prevent CNN from covering his speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

Upon arriving at the U.N. building in New York, Trump told CNN's Kaitlan Collins: "You shouldn't be here."

"You should not be here covering me. You said you weren't going to cover me, you shouldn't be covering me," Trump continued.

Collins tried to ask Trump about recent CNN polling showing two-thirds of Americans don't believe the U.S. is winning the war with Iran, and when he thinks the war will end, but he ignored her. Collins later noted that CNN was credentialed by the U.N. and would cover Trump's speech regardless of the president's White House ban on CNN, Politico, and MSNBC.

The television press pool — comprising Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN — announced on Monday that they would suspend broadcasts of Trump, leaving conservative outlet Real America's Voice as the only American TV outlet credentialed by the White House to cover Trump's U.N. speech.

For further reading:

• Trump's Epic Unpopularity Is Forcing His PAC to Spend in MAGA Country
• Three Trump-Appointed Judges Deliver Major Blow to Kalshi
• Trump's Crazed U.N. Speech Met With Silence and Walkouts
• Trump Brags About Looting Another Country in Bonkers U.N. Address