Nate Morris, who is flirting with a Republican run for former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat, has ties to former Democratic operatives and financially backed Nikki Haley after the 2020 presidential election.
Morris is fashioning himself as a Trump loyalist ahead of a possible Senate run, warning Kentuckians on X against electing “another Mitch McConnell puppet who will betray President Trump” and blasting McConnell for voting against some of the president’s cabinet nominees.
In a video Morris tweeted out Thursday after McConnell announced he would not be seeking reelection, Morris accused McConnell of “sabotage” against Trump and his agenda. He called for sending someone to Washington who is “going to fight with President Trump.”
The most important question in the Kentucky Senate race: Are we going to elect another Mitch McConnell puppet who will betray President Trump? Or are we going to elect an America First outsider who will break McConnell’s control of this seat?
It’s time to take out the trash. pic.twitter.com/svXnXIeK9J
— Nate Morris (@NateMorris) February 20, 2025
However, a review of the Kentucky businessman’s X account showed that he only tweeted sparingly about Trump prior to 2025, save for sending prayers to the president after the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania and asking him to provide grants and loans to his company and others in the waste industry during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Morris also financially supported former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley in June 2021. He donated $5,000 to Haley’s political action committee (PAC), Stand for America, three months after she said Trump likely had no future in the GOP.
“He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again,” Haley said in January 2021. Haley also said Trump’s actions in relation to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would be “judged harshly by history.”
Morris did not back Trump until two months after Haley ended her unsuccessful bid to be the GOP presidential nominee in March 2024. Morris then donated $50,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in May 2024, according to the Louisville Courier Journal.
The 44-year-old Morris started Rubicon, a software-based waste and recycling company, in 2008, according to the company’s website.
LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY – APRIL 06: Chairman & CEO of Rubicon, Nate Morris attends the 2022 Concordia Lexington Summit reception at Lexington Marriott City Center on April 06, 2022 in Lexington, Kentucky. Jon Cherry/Getty Images for Concordia
In 2015, Morris hired David Plouffe, who served as the campaign manager to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, to join Rubicon’s board.
While serving on the board, Plouffe said that Trump must be “destroyed thoroughly” in a now-deleted 2016 tweet.
— 𝐂𝐂 (@ChatByCC) September 16, 2024
Plouffe, who went on to advise former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, also wrote a book called “A Citizens Guide to Beating Donald Trump.”
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 16: (AFP OUT) David Plouffe, Senior White House Advisor (L), shakes hands with U.S. President Barack Obama during a DNC meeting on March 16, 2011 in Washington, DC. As his second fundraising event of the week, Obama spoke to members of the DNC’s national advisory board and finance committee. Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images
In addition to his ties to Plouffe, Morris was a member of the Trilateral Commission, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) founded by David Rockefeller in 1973. A Trilateral Commission task force released a report in June 2022 that called for Net Zero climate initiatives and for a “more inclusive future.”
Morris was not part of the task force but was still listed as a member of the Trilateral Commission as of August 2022, according to an archived web page.
However, Morris’s involvement in the globalist group was scrubbed from the internet after January 2025. The weblink for Morris’s profile on the website currently turns up a message saying, “Sorry, this page is not available.”
An archived version of the website shows his profile was available as recently as January 1.
As a former member of the Commission, Morris joins ranks with neoliberal dignitaries such as President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Republican New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and reportedly convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who New York Magazine referred to as an “enthusiastic member” of the Trilateral Commission.
The Trilateral Commission did not return a request for comment on why Morris’s biography page was removed.
Morris said he was “seriously looking at” running for McConnell’s seat even before the longtime Kentucky kingmaker vowed to retire after his term ends in 2026. (RELATED: Kentucky Republicans Pass Bill Stripping Dem Gov Of Power To Temporarily Fill Vacant Senate Seats)
While Morris is yet to officially announce a run, he has heavily criticized former Republican Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who announced his candidacy Thursday, and Republican Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr, who is also considering running, accusing them of being puppets of McConnell.
UPDATE 9:12 PM:
A spokesperson for Nate Morris issued the following comment after publication of the article:
“These are the smears people face when they dare stand up to Mitch McConnell and his cronies. Daniel Cameron is melting down because he’s been exposed as McConnell’s puppet in the race for US Senate, which is why he’s desperately texting this article that his team planted to every contact in his phone. Unfortunately for him, Kentucky will not send a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitch McConnell like Daniel Cameron to the US Senate.”
