Biden’s numbers bad for Biden, but Trump’s indictments are not for Trump?
CNN broke news Tuesday night that federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against New York Rep. George Santos (R). Coverage for now is informed speculation at best. The charges won’t be unsealed until later today when Santos is expected to appear in court in the eastern district of New York.
“When someone has committed as much apparent fraud as Santos has,” Marcy Wheeler notes, “there’s no telling what the real story behind all that fraud is.” So we wait.
Also in New York, a civil trial jury found Donald J. Trump guilty on Tuesday of sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. The six men and three women voted unanimously.
Also in New York, Trump still faces state charges of 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree.
Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County, Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis have yet to file federal and state charges against Trump for as much apparent criminality as Trump has committed. So we wait. As Trump continues to run for president again in 2024, we wait.
Walter Shapiro writes in The New Republic that problematic polls for Presdident Biden are no cause for concern for Democrats. His age, his poll numbers, and polling matchups between Biden and Trump ignore the bigger picture.
(And why exactly are Biden’s numbers bad for Biden, but Trump’s and his indictments are not a death rattle for Trump’s 2024 ambitions?)
Biden may never be a compelling candidate, Shapiro reminds readers, and his age does trouble voters. At least he’s stable:
But every election is a choice between two candidates, not a quest for a modern-day Pericles. And whether GOP voters choose Trump the Sexual Abuser or another candidate from the right-wing fever swamps, that nominee is going to come with more baggage than a 1930s movie star on a trans-Atlantic crossing.
Unless the GOP miraculously picks someone like Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor and ardent anti-Trumper, the Republican nominee will find it impossible to locate the political center even with a guide and a compass. From abortion to book banning, the Republicans are saddled with the politically unpalatable side of almost every emotionally potent issue except immigration. And if the nominee is Ron DeSantis, he may never live down the Peggy Noonan line that he “carries a vibe … that he might unplug your life support to re-charge his cellphone.”
Good line. Had missed that one. Damned accurate.
Negative partisanship drove Democratic victories in 2018 and 2020, and its undertow sucked the overhyped 2022 red wave down to a ripple. How many Americans will go the to polls to vote for “an unhinged president motivated only by ego and revenge”?
As for Biden’s sharpness, he was sharp enough on Tuesday not to be baited by a reporter into accepting the GOP’s framing of the debt negotiations:
REPORTER: Speaker McCarthy said that he asked you numerous times if there was anywhere in the federal budget for cuts, but he did not get an answer, so–
BIDEN: He got a specific answer. He got a specific answer again, today.
REPORTER: Which is what?
BIDEN: Well, you didn’t listen, either, so why should I even answer the question? We cut the deficit by $160 billion, b-i-l-l-i-o-n, dollars on the Medicare deal. We cut the deficit by raising the tax on people making–55 corporations that made $40 billion to 15%. And the list goes on. So–
REPORTER: But in terms of what he is proposing, is there any room for negotiation?
BIDEN: What’s he proposing? Did he tell you?
REPORTER: He talked about–
BIDEN: No, no, I’m not being facetious. Did he tell you what he’s proposing?
REPORTER: He was talking about the bill.
BIDEN: Yeah, but what does it propose? Do you know? I’m not being a wise guy. You all are very, very informed people. Do you know what that bill cuts?
REPORTER: He–there is a long list of things that it cuts.
BIDEN: No, it doesn’t say it. Does it say what it’s going to cut? Or just say generically it’s going to cut?
[Pause]
You get the problem?
Seems on his game to me.
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