Hotter Than the Underside of a Boiling Kettle
R24 is where the news is at: Roe, Roe, Roe your boat....
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For some subset of us, the contest for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is a wild, wooly, and happening story right this very minute.
Why?
1. Of course, Trump is front and center in the news, in a wacky and unpredictable situation. Think him monster or savior, you can’t turn away from Season Whatever Season This Is: Trump, the pornographic actress, the alleged tryst, the alleged payoff, maybe running under indictment(s), his poll numbers anything but slumping (even in hypothetical head-to-heads with the incumbent)…you can’t make this stuff up.
2. Ron DeSantis is front and center in the news, almost doing genuinely interesting things, with a lot of scrutiny, hopes, dreams, and investments from others.
3. The contours of King Kong versus Godzilla are starting to take shape, as Trump and DeSantis spar, compete to sign up talent and endorsements, and we all begin to imagine the reality of what this thing will look like as it plays out.
4. The debates begin in just a handful of months, and they will be held in Tension City, assuming both King Kong and Godzilla show up.
5. Iowa and New Hampshire are less than a year away!
6. The contest to be the Third Woman or Third Man is happening with intensity behind the scenes and in front of the camera, and if you are of the school of thought that says Trump can’t be the nominee and DeSantis has a glass jaw, well, then, the Third is a key player.
7. The Mitt Romney School (Trump is likely to be the nominee) and the Karl Rove School (not so fast there, bub) both have a lot of bright and well-meaning adherents who are united in their passionate desire that Donald Trump not, in fact, be the nominee.
8. Unless you are of the school of thought that says Joe Biden will not actually end up as the Democratic nominee (from a combo of the so-called “3Hs -- health, Hunter, and the Harris Hindrance), then you believe Joe Biden will win the Democratic nomination without a serious challenge, and that is as big a news snooze as listening to Bruce Reed, Gene Sperling, and Austan Goolsbee talk about Dutch land use policy. Which means the Republican contest is the only game in town.
So this is a darn interesting story, this fight for the Republican nomination.
It’s Trump (which means he wins or loses in the general!), DeSantis (which means a lot of stuff to all of us), or the Third (which would be quite a tale of political rags to riches).
Despite the Dominant Media’s general bias against Republicans, there are in fact exceptions at the presidential campaign level. The media rooted for George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004 in the generals, had a huge love affair with John McCain for almost a decade, and maintained an extended fascination bordering on favoritism towards Trump in 2016.
As best one can tell, this time the Dominant Media has no use for Trump, DeSantis or most of the Thirds (and, in the end, probably all of them).
That stark reality is going to matter at various points along the way, trust me.
For now, here is the latest news, via this news cycle’s essential reads:
* Trump has still not been indicted by Mr. Bragg’s operation, and you can read all the speculation about why, when, who, and what on your phone, including in the New York Post, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and in Ross Douthat, who takes what is known as The Halperin Position regarding how an indictment might well help Trump politically in the short and medium terms.
The New York Post has a bunch of stuff that is important if true:
The move — which forestalls a potentially unprecedented indictment of the 45th president in connection with the payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels — came because an unidentified witness was unable to appear, sources said.
The witness is believed to be someone who will rebut Monday’s testimony from lawyer and Trump ally Robert Costello, sources said….
The grand jury was put on standby because it was unclear whether the witness would be available Thursday, a source said.
But court workers began making preparations late Wednesday afternoon for the testimony to take place Thursday, a source said….
Wednesday’s turn of events came as a source with ties to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office told The Post that Bragg was concerned following Costello’s testimony. A spokesperson for the DA’s office denied this.
“The last thing he wants is for the grand jury to vote against him,” the source said. “He wants a no-doubt-about-it case. He is pressuring the ‘Trump obsessed’ to step up and prove the case.”
A source inside Bragg’s office also said a substantial number of assistant district attorneys were “shaking their heads” over Bragg’s decision to pursue Trump, 76.
“They don’t understand how this case is going forward,” the source said. “These ADAs are not fans of Trump but they are professional lawyers and know the law.”
Fox News also reported “major dissension” inside Bragg’s office, with one source saying the “weakness” of the evidence against Trump was posing problems for prosecutors.
Sources familiar with my thinking say I have no idea if any of that is accurate.
* The New York Times takes the unusual/unprecedented step of doing a far better job enunciating the foreign policy doctrine of a leading presidential prospect than said prospect has ever done himself, with a smart excavation of DeSantis’ foreign policy and national security pronouncements through the years. Note the supportive Tom Cotton cameo, the heavy travel to Israel, and the fact that the Times’ attempt to give the Sunshine State topper a coherent world view flies in the face of the hard choices to come, when theory meets reality with the complexities of Republican politics and facts on the ground.
* See if you think DeSantis’ attempt to clean up the Ukraine position he staked out with Tucker Carlson, via his apparently VERY wide-ranging Piers Morgan interview puts DeSantis in the right place and/or demonstrates his pivoting skills to good effect. Also, don’t miss Tucker’s reaction, per the New York Times:
The change appeared not to have been lost on Mr. Carlson. Just hours after Mr. DeSantis’s new comments about Mr. Putin were made public, Mr. Carlson attacked what he said were people who give in to the news media, asserting that they are forced “to repeat whatever childish slogan they’ve come up with this week.” In a mocking voice, he said, “Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.”
* Per Politico, the leading pro-DeSantis Super PAC signed up strategist Jeff Roe, who ran the Cruz campaign in 2016 and has been the main political force behind Glenn Youngkin. Which means Youngkin is almost certainly not going to be the Third Man; here’s the Youngkin 2024 obit in the Washington Post. And which means said Super PAC has a distinctive theory of the case. Bringing on Roe, who specializes in ground game more than paid media, suggests this will be a Super PAC that emphasizes data-driven field work that attempts to turn out support via voter contact as much as use its money for paid TV ads. That former function is a less common but vital role for a Super PAC — especially one backing a first-time candidate like DeSantis, who is new to presidential campaigning in the key primary and caucus states. Team Trump will surely take note of this all.
* Politico also makes its best attempt at pretending the contest to be the Third is heating up to relevance, when it is not (yet). The Washington Post’s version of the same story has these stunning paragraphs:
Trump’s team, for its part, believes the former president’s biggest weaknesses currently are fatigue with his chaos and controversies; his baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen; and the poor showing by Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, one top adviser said. The personality-based attacks, this person added, are less successful because concerns about Trump’s character are already “baked in the cake.”
“The message I think works against him is that there’s only one person who could lose to Joe Biden in 2024,” said a second longtime Trump adviser.
Republicans looking to beat Trump have begun considering — and in some cases testing — other messages, including some based on Trump’s record in office, according to several people familiar with the different efforts. The possible attacks include that he empowered Fauci, who became the face of covid prevention efforts and a target of right-wing anger; that Trump never finished building a wall at the nation’s southern border; and that Trump hired and elevated “woke” military generals.
I mean, shocking-but-not-surprising is par for the Trump course, but, really, two Trump advisers telling the Washington Post where their own horse has tender vulnerabilities???!!! Who does that??!! (Answer: Trump advisers!!!)
* Piers unfurls more of his DeSantis interview, this time a discussion of his marriage proposal and the tragic death of his sister – and another on his limiting sugar and carbs to drop some pounds.
NEWS CYCLE RANKINGS
DeSantis (Times coverage boffo, cleaned up Tucker for donors, wins the Roe Primary).
Trump (lost limelight, CW turning against indictment helping him).
Third Man/Woman (Youngkin was the best bet and status quo for the rest).
****
OTHER ESSENTIAL READS
* The Associated Press, on the case that my Spideysense still suggests represents the greatest legal and political threat to Trump:
A federal appeals court in a sealed order Wednesday directed a lawyer for Donald Trump to turn over to prosecutors documents in the investigation into the former president’s retention of classified records at his Florida estate.
The ruling is a significant win for the Justice Department, which has focused for months not only on the hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago but also on why Trump and his representatives resisted demands to return them to the government. It suggests the court has sided with prosecutors who have argued behind closed doors that Trump was using his legal representation to further a crime.
Approval of President Joe Biden has dipped slightly since a month ago, nearing the lowest point of his presidency as his administration tries to project a sense of stability while confronting a pair of bank failures and inflation that remains stubbornly high.
That’s according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which shows there have been modest fluctuations in support for Biden over the past several months. The president notched an approval rating of 38% in the new poll, after 45% said they approved in February and 41% in January. His ratings hit their lowest point of his presidency last July, at 36%, as the full weight of rising gasoline, food and other costs began to hit U.S. households.
In recent months, approval of Biden had been hovering above 40%.
* Miranda Devine with another Hunter Biden exclusive, also incredible if true, about an FBI mole nicknamed “One-Eye.”