Let’s start the New Year off right: classy political gossip
The Democrats are already into it, with columnists suggesting President Biden should dump Kamala Harris and take on Liz Cheney as his VP (Tom Friedman in the New York Times), and that there are likely more than a dozen contenders for the Democratic throne (per Perry Bacon Jr in the Washington Post): Kentucky Governor Any Beshear, Senator Corey Booker, former Montana governor Steve Bullock, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (Pa.), North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Sen. Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (WI), Sen. Raphael Warnock (Ga.), Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf. Oh yes, according to two New York politicos, Hillary Clinton is for sure coming in. (Spoiler alert: No she won’t. Trust me on this)
That sounds as exciting as the 2020 Iowa primary. But we don’t have to go there.
Instead, let’s look at the Republicans. The initial cut at their field looks like this:
Donald Trump. Numero Uno. El Jefe-in-Chief. Everyone who talks with Trump comes away with the absolute impression he is running. Which is exactly the impression Trump wants to leave.
He dominates the Republican Party as no one has since Ronald Reagan. He is purging Republicans from their seats in Congress who voted to impeach him or support the January 6 House Select Committee.
He is endorsing not only candidates for governor, the House and Senate, but also for state government offices where the votes are counted in key states, like Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
He wants to make sure that no matter what the ballots say, he wins those states. Money is no issue for Trump. Demanding complete and utter loyalty is – not only to him but to his belief that the 2020 election was stolen, and that he is the legitimate president, and that the record of the stolen election has to be corrected.
So the interesting question is: who has the spine, the temerity, the courage, the foolhardiness, the fearlessness, the crazy imagination, the guts, after seeing what Trump did to the field in 2016?
That they actually think they can go mano-a-mano against Trump and beat him in the Republican primaries – to have the stamina to remain standing after Trump unloads on them and calls on his base to eviscerate their candidacies?
Who indeed? Who gets up in the morning, puts their pants on one leg at a time, looks at themselves in the mirror and says: Yes, I can beat and I can beat that you-know-what and become President of the United States?
Right now, that field is composed of five white men:
Mike Pence, former Vice President. Pence, a man with enormous ambition, was serving as governor of Indiana in 2016. He desperately wanted to be Trump’s VP because it would mean he could become the P. Pence still hungers for it.
But there is one problem: Trump hates him for his disloyalty in not overturning Biden’s election when the Electoral College votes were counted.
Pence stood up to withering pressure from Trump to be loyal, and Pence did his constitutional duty instead. Trump never forgives. Trump has made no secret that he hates Pence. And Trump’s base knows it, and they will not vote for him.
Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State. Pompeo, who also served as head of the CIA under Trump, was hardline loyal to Trump’s foreign policy objectives.
Wherever Trump wanted to go on Russia or China or dealing with the Taliban to get out of Afghanistan, Pompeo was there. Pompeo is sharp, articulate, and fierce. He can bring a focus on Trumpist policies that work with the base. He has also lost over 40 kilos – a sure sign he is running.
Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey. After years of dealing with Trump and being in his good graces (Trump wanted Christie to be his chief of staff in the White House), Christie has broken with Trump.
Christie believes the party needs to move on, and that Trump’s obsession with the 2020 election is a cancer on the party. And they don’t play beanbag in New Jersey. Christie can take any knuckledusters Trump wants to throw.
Larry Hogan, governor of Maryland. A super longshot. Hogan is a moderate Republican and extremely popular in Maryland, a Democratic state. He too believes in a post-Trump Republican party and wants to take his call to conscience on the road. His prospects are zero.
Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida. A bigger threat to Trump than Pence or Pompeo. DeSantis has all the Trumpist policy swagger – but not Trump’s character flaws. In other words, 100% Trumpism without Trump.
So what is the governor doing in Florida right now? Passing a law to outlaw abortion after 15 weeks and making sure racial equity is not taught in Florida schools and ensuring Florida health policy is against everything Dr Anthony Fauci is for in terms of dealing with Covid. DeSantis is pugnacious and defiant. He has immense belief in his political skills and strength. To paraphrase Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, “He is a contender.”
If DeSantis is not muscled out of running by Trump, he will likely prove to be Trump’s fiercest competitor.
One hitch for Trump: he can’t get DeSantis out of the way by offering him the vice presidency.
The Constitution effectively stops the president and vice president from being from the same state. (The 12th Amendment reads in relevant part: “The electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.”)
So, who will be on the Republican ballot to carry Florida in 2024? Trump or DeSantis?
Bruce Wolpe is a Ticker News US political contributor. He’s a Senior Fellow at the US Studies Centre and has worked with Democrats in Congress during President Barack Obama's first term, and on the staff of Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He has also served as the former PM's chief of staff.
Donald Trump, former president of the United States, hated Arraignment Day I in Manhattan two months ago, the first time a former president had been criminally charged.
Trump was being forced against his will into a proceeding he had utter contempt for.He was being arrested and fingerprinted and photographed under an indictment under the jurisdiction of Manhattan in New York City for allegations of hush money payments and fraudulent bookkeeping practices to conceal criminal activity. Trump heard the charges read out against him and he entered a plea of not guilty.
Trump had a terrible day. Trump wore a scowl throughout. His countenance was fearsome.What Trump hated most about his arraignment in New York is that he had to sit at a table with his counsel side by side with him — equal to him — and with the judge above him looking down on him. Trump could not control the discussion and could not interrupt to make his points.
Trump was subordinate to the judge. He was subordinate to no one as president.
Arraignment Day II
Arraignment Day II in Miami will be worse from Trump, even more stressful.The charges are substantially more serious:the alleged violation of federal criminal statutes involving the alleged mishandling and illegal possession of classified documents, lying to legal authorities, and obstruction of justice.Potential penalties run to years in prison and millions of dollars in fines.
Trump throughout his business life had always crafted his affairs to avoid being a defendant. But in his term in office, he was caught up in it big time. He was a defendant in two impeachment trials – again, unprecedented events – and left office in disgrace.
But Trump does not feel disgraced. He never does.Trump does not have a reverse gear.He never retreats.Never admits. Never concedes. Never yields.Trump is never embarrassed. Trump never feels ashamed. When something goes wrong, it is always the fault of someone else.
Bill Barr SLAMS his former boss:
“He’s not a victim here. He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets that the country has…He had no right to maintain them and retain them”pic.twitter.com/VViNFpwbzt
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) June 11, 2023
And Trump never repents.
Trump can feel this way because Trump is waging war on behalf of his armies in “the final battle” for the future of the county. In his first, fiery post-indictment speech in Georgia, Trump said, “They’ve launched one witch hunt after another to try and stop our movement, to thwart the will of the American people.In the end, they’re not coming after me. They’re coming after you … “Either we have a Deep State, or we have a Democracy…Either the Deep State destroys America, or WE destroy the Deep State.”
It is a powerful formulation, and his true believers love it.
Hours later, In North Carolina, Trump mainlined his distilled message for the Republican crowd:
“We are a failing nation. We are a nation in decline. And now these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement.
It’s totally corrupt and we cannot let it happen.
.@RepDanGoldman: "Donald Trump believed the law does not apply to him, and that he would do anything he could to conceal and maintain possession of highly, highly classified national security information that would jeopardize our national security." https://t.co/IfX8bV4EVkpic.twitter.com/Gvjv8aNFkn
With you at my side we will demolish the Deep State.
We will expel the warmongers from our government.
We will drive out the globalists.
We will cast out the communists.
We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.
We will roll out the fake news media.
We will defeat Joe Bide and we will liberate America from those villains once and for all.”
Any lesser mortal would be staggered by these events.Any other presidential candidate would be driven from the race.But not Trump.
Debase and disgrace
Trump is using the same playbook today as he successfully triggered after being charged in New York:debase and disgrace the legal process by terming it completely political.Trump said the federal indictment is “election interference at the highest level.”
Almost every other Republican running for president has adopted this line, insulating Trump from pressure to leave the field.
Trump’s chief opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said after these indictments: “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation.”
Republican congressperson Nancy Mace: “This is a banana republic. I can’t believe this is happening.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Democrats are arresting their political enemies. and they work together in their corrupt ways to get it done.”
Trump is using his affliction to raise millions of dollars from his base.
Trump will likely face Arraignment Day III in Georgia in August.A state prosecutor is expected to charge Trump with criminal interference in the certification of Georgia’s vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
As of now, there is no sign of cracks in Trump’s support among Republican voters.There is no surge to another candidate.What remains to be seen is whether Republican voters, as they see Trump spend his days in courtrooms and his evenings at rallies around the country, reach a conclusion that this is a spectacle too far, too much to bear, and that they want to turn to another conservative populist who stands for them in the political trials— and not the criminal trials – of 2024.
It’s not often that a U.S. President faces federal indictment, but if it’s going to happen to anyone, it might as well be Donald Trump first.
The news that Donald Trump is facing a federal investigation over the removal of secret documents from the White House in 2021 came as no surprise.
Keen watches of the Washington soap opera have seen this playbook before, albeit in a different form.
There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a Washington outsider. But as seriously damaged as he may be (thanks to the events of January 6), his support base has only grown whenever he faces scrutiny.
For his supporters, his legal woes mirror their own relationship with the government – a giant, unfair beast that picks and chooses its fights.
Trump is accused of storing sensitive documents—including those concerning matters of national security—in boxes, some even in a shower.
The documents were seized last August when investigators from the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.
The Department of Justice has historically avoided charging people who are running for public office. Whether they should do that is a debate for another day. But it’s happening now. And it’s making it all too easy for Trump to claim there is a concerted campaign to get him away from the White House.
Trump exposed the deep state. IF they exist, they probably don’t want him back in power. Whether they exist doesn’t matter really, because plenty of Trump’s supporters agree with him, and believe the secret state is working against them. Call it QAnon, call it a conspiracy – it doesn’t matter in a democracy.
The DoJ now has to go all in. Failing to secure a conviction would be a serious embarrassment for the department.
This is the second time Trump has been indicted in recent months, yet the opinion polls show he only increases his popularity among MAGA and Republican voters. It leaves the Republican party in a difficult position. Support their leading candidate or support the law?
As other Republicans rallied around the embattled candidate, Trump held on to his loyal base of supporters.
For the Democrats, and for Biden, another reality will soon sink in – if Trump becomes President, and they lose office next year, how will a Trump-run DoJ deal with them?
Broadly, the tit-for-tat one-up-manship of U.S. politics is breaking tradition and potentially breaking the country.