|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Former U.S. president Donald Trump will attend the 2023 “Palmetto Bowl” at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C. next Saturday (November 25, 2023), multiple sources familiar with logistical preparations for his visit have confirmed to this media outlet.
Trump will attend the 120th installment of the in-state rivalry between South Carolina and Clemson as a guest of South Carolina governor Henry McMaster, his longtime Palmetto State acolyte.
McMaster is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and longtime supporter of Gamecock athletics. His predecessor in office – Nikki Haley – is a Clemson University graduate and longtime supporter of the Tigers.
It is not immediately clear whether Haley – who is challenging Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination – will be in attendance at the game.
News of Trump’s attendance was first posted Monday on several X platforms – including ours.
***
***
The information has since been confirmed by multiple political and law enforcement sources.
According to our law enforcement sources, multiple agencies – including the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), the S.C. Department of Public Safety (SCDPS), the Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) and the city of Columbia Police Department (CPD) are coordinating the logistics of Trump’s visit.
University officials are also working with the governor’s office – and Trump’s political staff – regarding his introduction at the game.
Trump – the presumed GOP presidential nominee in 2024 – is the runaway favorite to win South Carolina’s “First in the South” presidential primary on February 24, 2024. According to a poll released just this week by Winthrop University, Trump is backed by 52 percent of likely South Carolina GOP primary voters – putting him well ahead of Haley (17 percent) and Florida governor Ron DeSantis (12 percent).
One source familiar with the planning for the visit referred to it as a “massive production” involving a “massive law enforcement presence.”
The motorcade carrying Trump will reportedly cause shutdowns of multiple traffic arteries – including Interstate freeways – at critical moments before and after the game. That’s likely to make an already brutal traffic situation exponentially worse.
“He could lose more votes than he picks up due to the traffic alone,” one source remarked.
(Click to View)
The Clemson-South Carolina game was the longest continually played rivalry in the south – and the second-longest continually played rivalry in the nation – prior to it being cancelled in 2020 due to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) refusing to play non-conference games during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The rivalry has been a one-sided affair for a very long time, with Clemson enjoying a 72-43-4 (.626) edge over South Carolina since the first game was played in 1896. The Tigers won seven games in a row from 2014-2021 – tying the series record for consecutive wins – but were narrowly upset by the Gamecocks last year at Death Valley in Clemson, S.C.
That upset victory broke the Tigers’ 40-game home winning streak – the longest active streak in all of college football at the time.
This year, both programs have struggled. Clemson began the season ranked No. 9 in the nation but has limped to a 6-4 record. Head coach Dabo Swinney‘s team did score a huge win over No. 15 Notre Dame earlier this month, however, and are hoping to pull off another upset this weekend when they host No. 20 North Carolina.
As for South Carolina, the third year of head coach Shane Beamer‘s tenure has been an unmitigated disaster. After exceeding expectations during his first two seasons, Beamer saw his squad start the 2023 campaign just a few votes out of the Top 25.
The wheels has since fallen off, though, with the Gamecocks struggling to a 4-6 record.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven (soon to be eight) children.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to proactively address? We have an open microphone policy here at FITSNews! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
25 comments
Have fun paying for all of that, taxpayers of South Carolina!
A rapists who hasn’t been President for three years, after goading his deeply dumb supporters to terrorize our Capitol building (resulting in nearly a thousand, so far, going to prison) is going to make an appearance at a pointless football game and run up a huge bill for the State, City and school.
I guess Trump needs a few crowds before dying in prison? In any case, Trump gets to grift a State full of rubes one last time and they’ll eat it all up!
Yeah, uhm, “…resulting in nearly a thousand, so far, going to prison…”? Not so much, just over 1,100 people were charged for some act “related” to the event. Of those, about 490 have been tried and received some kind of sentence. Of those about 280 were actually sentenced to jail of some kind. Interestingly enough, the person most responsible for allowing the events that day to occur is still a sitting congresswoman from California.
However, I could do without the Trumpian circus regardless.
lol
Is that what you remaining trumpers tell each other in your Facebook groups to excuse your support for domestic terrorists?
“Of the over a thousand terrorists charged only several hundred are in prison, so it’s not that bad!!!”
Wonder how long Trump will stay before realizing he’s in a stadium full of poors and bolts for wherever his next trial appearance is?
Not a Trumper, never voted for him, never would. Just pointing out the hyperbolic nature of reporting about January 6th.
Hyperbolic???? Are you out of your mind? I watched lit all live on TV. They were breaking down doors, scaling walls, breaking in windows, They were running through the halls yelling “Where’s Nancy” and “Hang Mike Pence” They beat police officers with polls and sprayed them with bear spray. If they had found Nancy Pelosi, they would have killed her. If they had found Mike Pence they would have killed him. Who knows how many other Senators and Representatives would be dead or injured if the Capitol police had not stood their ground? None of that is Hyperbolic. It is totally and objectively true. Donald Trump wanted what happened and he refused to stop it. He thought enough people would be killed to give the Republicans control and they would make him President.
U r a special kind of stupid.
So Mr, Joe Biden don’t be so hard on Donald.
Impossible for prosecution to get a unanimous Guilty Verdict and prosecution can’t strike every republican from jury pool .
The criminal charges are a blatant attempt to take the choice from the voters as to who they want for president.
Very sad
Exactly. McMaster should pay the bill himself.
TRUMP’s a great add to this years shit show! All LOSERS!!!!!
Notice how Trump’s nazi rallies don’t draw much any more?
He’ll just borrow a college football game’s crowd to have his nazi rally and make the taxpayers pay for it.
Some of the most rabid Marxist-Leninist Maoist Trotskyites in the state can be found within the ranks of the faculty, staff and students of USC and Clemson, whilst the cowardly RINOs on their respective Boards of Trustees stick their heads in the sand and try to play nice with them. For decades, the RINOs were timidly playing checkers while the leftists were aggressively playing chess. Instead, the communists and socialist have accomplished their “long march through the institutions” in higher education in this State, and they despise Trump and those who following him with the flaming hot blaze of a thousand suns. I wonder what embarrassing hijinx their purple- haired, gender-fluid shock troops will try to pull at the game to draw a spotlight onto themselves in their delusional self-righteousness.
Dude, stop crying about whatever secret cabal of stoner college students are secretly plotting a world takeover. Boomers like you have all but guaranteed a life of poverty for them, nothing’s gonna happen bro.
No douchebag, I pay attention to what they write, what they do, and what they say, and I take them at their word. When they say they are trained in the doctrines of Marx and Mao, and they think it’s great, I believe them. When they say capitalism is evil, and collectivism and forced wealth re-distribution is good, I take note. Maybe you should pay attention.
“I pay attention to what they write, what they do, and what they say, and I take them at their word.”
Oh no. Affordable higher education. The world is ending. Oh geeze.
Boomers should have never been allowed to use the internet. The poor things are easily brainwashed by the stupidest non-sense conspiracy theories.
The Greatest Generation raised the Most Useful Idiots, Boomers.
I agree. BTW, I’m not a Boomer. I’m one of the many younger ones who will have to work till their 75 because the Boomers collectively screwed all the rest of us. I suspect you are too.
Thank you for financing our retirement years.
So you are a “Dumbocrat”, it is so obvious.
Maybe he’ll hire one of the football players to be his lawyer. They can’t do much worse than his current ones.
As the article says – ut’ll make an already-horrendous traffic debacle even worse…. I wouldn’t drive to Columbia for this game for all the tea in China.
The Puddytats and the Banty Roosters will be at it again for the most redneck of all sports, American Football, misnamed as it is rarely touched by the feet; it should be called handball, The winner will probably be those who have smeared their footprints on roads leading into Pickens County. I think our next President will not be received well as he will probably cut not paying back college loans as his first act.
You’ll learn when you become an adult that you are responsible for paying back the money you borrowed for your transgender studies degree.
I hope the “Tigers” wipe the field when they show up—a lifelong Tiger fan. I can’t believe the “Guverer” invited him to our State Capital; how embarrassing.
You think traffic is bad now…wait until that makeup wearing buffoon shows up.