Huffington Post reporter Ryan Grim told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on Tuesday that “something like 54 private jets” had arrived at an elite meeting of tech CEOs, GOP party insiders and big donors set on stopping Donald Trump before he wins the Republican nomination.
The meeting was the annual World Forum, an off-the-record conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a leading Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank. AEI has hosted the “secretive” event since 1982, but this year had a unique focus. Republican pundit Bill Kristol and former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove were there, among others, including leaders of both the House and Senate.
Grim broke the story:
Billionaires, tech CEOs and top members of the Republican establishment flew to a private island resort off the coast of Georgia this weekend for the American Enterprise Institute’s annual World Forum, according to sources familiar with the secretive gathering.
The main topic at the closed-to-the-press confab? How to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google co-founder Larry Page, Napster creator and Facebook investor Sean Parker, and Tesla Motors and SpaceX honcho Elon Musk all attended. So did Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), political guru Karl Rove, House Speaker Paul Ryan, GOP Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.), Cory Gardner (Colo.), Tim Scott (S.C.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), who recently made news by saying he “cannot support Donald Trump.”
Grim added: “Federal Aviation Administration records available on FlightAware.com show that a fleet of private jets flew into and out of two small airports near Sea Island this weekend. Fifty-four planes flew out of the airport on St. Simons Island, Georgia, on Sunday — nearly four times as many as departed from the airport the previous Sunday.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new e-book, Leadership Secrets of the Kings and Prophets: What the Bible’s Struggles Teach Us About Today, is on sale through Amazon Kindle Direct. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.