Señor Trumpanzee Was Indicted Yesterday... But Meatball Ron Was The Big Loser

Last night, Meridith McGraw, Natalie Allison and Alex Isenstadt were at Trump’s indictment party at Mar-a-Lago “[T]here was no sense of sobriety in the air. It felt, instead, like a MAGA movie set… [A]s the assembled guests waited for the man of the hour to arrive, the setting took on the feel of a catwalk for Trump world’s upper crust. Family, staff and top surrogates walked in smiling and waving. The crowd applauded as Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tiffany Trump and her husband, Michael Boulos, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Ginger Gaetz walked two-by-two to the front of the room. They were followed by a parade that included Trump advisers, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Eric and Lara Trump.” Kari Lake was there too, but, needless to say, Florida governor Meatball Ron wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Tuesday, in a way, was like a campaign relaunch, still grievance-filled but with Trump world feeling that they are in a better position. The polling that just months ago was used as evidence of his failure to rally the base has dramatically shifted, now showing the former president with leads upward of 20 percentage points over DeSantis. It underscored the central paradox of Trump’s political career: His standing benefits from the crises he endures.

“We’re back to all Trump all the time,” said former House Speaker and past presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. “Nothing makes him happier. Now, he’d like it to be more positive than it is, but if his choice was between being totally ignored or being in the middle of a firestorm, he’s in the middle of a firestorm. And he’s good at it.”

…Under normal circumstances, having a historic indictment handed down by the Manhattan grand jury against you, and pleading not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records of the first degree, does not qualify as being “back.” But Trump is not your typical candidate.

…[P]ublic polling taken since news broke of a likely Manhattan indictment found that nearly all Republican primary voters believe the case is politically motivated, an opinion shared by most voters across the spectrum, even those who support the indictment, a new CNN poll found.

At Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, there were familiar faces— including Roger Stone, the self proclaimed “dirty trickster,” who chatted with Trump aides and Trump White House physician turned Texas congressman Ronny Jackson, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) and former Trump cabinet member Ric Grenell— mingling with guests.

…News of Trump’s indictment effectively sucked all the oxygen away from his 2024 rivals. On Monday, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley made a visit to the southern border that was overshadowed by preparations for Trump’s arraignment. Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) political team on Tuesday went ahead with formally announcing his upcoming early-state swing, a press release sent half an hour before Trump entered the Manhattan courthouse. Even the media appetite for DeSantis news was subdued on Monday and Tuesday, with top headlines on the Florida governor being that Democrats had released an opposition file on him, and the author Judy Blume had critical words about him.

It demonstrated the challenges Trump’s rivals face in going head-to-head with a man who has decades of experience manipulating the media even as he faces unprecedented legal peril.

“Before this indictment it was already tough for any Republican to attack Trump, and the reason is because for the last five years voters were under the belief that if you attack Trump you’re a RINO or establishment Republican. Now that got even harder. You’re attacking him while Democrats are going after Trump in New York— how does that not make you look allied with the people who are trying to take him down?”

George Will was embarrassed for them— for all of us… and hoping the U.S. had hit rock bottom. Of course, it being George Will, what he was embarrassed about wasn’t just Trump and his supporters, it was also “his prosecutorial adversaries, the tribalism on both sides.” He believes all the case against are basically bogus but, he wrote, “the Republican nominating electorate, although not invariably farsighted, surely will recognize that if Trump is the Republican nominee, his November 2024 defeat is highly probable: A national majority of voters dislike him and hate the chaos he promises and delivers. Besides, is anyone undecided about him?” Will has been in his very own bubble for a long time now and he’s virtually the only persona in America who thinks Trump is going to lose the nomination to someone from the “array” of what he called, the GOP’s “strong bench. Granted, it is risky to divide the non-Trump vote. It is, however, riskier today to wager everything, about nine months before Iowa begins the delegate selection, on one person.” In other words— Republicans shouldn’t count on Meatball Ron alone.

DeSantis is defining himself before his rivals can define him, but not to his advantage. He seems intelligent but unpleasant, forthright but prickly, accomplished but incapable of political grace notes. He also seems tightly scripted— perhaps for good reasons.

His unforced errors include describing Russia’s war of annihilation against Ukraine as a “territorial dispute.” And backing a ban on abortion after six weeks, which is before women often know they are pregnant. (Is he trying to forfeit the female vote in suburbia, where the 2024 election might be decided?) And vowing, unintelligibly (see the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 2), that he will “not assist” any extradition of Trump from Florida.

In politics as in baseball, at which the young DeSantis excelled, “AAAA players” are those who excel in AAA ball, the highest minor league, but fail above that. A presidential campaign is a rigorous apprenticeship that DeSantis, although still not an announced candidate, is, less than a mile into the marathon, flunking.

Charlie Sykes’ take is far more relevant and grounded in the kind of reality George Will has long ago lost touch with— recognizing the damage all this is doing to the Trump Party. He noted that Trump “is the only man in American presidential history who could pay off two porn stars, and orchestrate a criminal conspiracy to cover it up in the final crucial days of a presidential election, and have people think that it was ‘trivial’. After seven years of pussy grabbing, mendacity, incitements, obstruction, shooting people in the middle of 5th Avenue, and an endless torrent of lies, the smart kids still look at the criminal charges and wonder if that’s all there is to it?

By the way, this version of the song so offended Lieber and Stoller, the writers, that they successfully sued and had it suppressed. Two decades later, they listened to it again and changed their minds and allowed it to re-released as a bonus track on a Cristina compilation album. I used to play it frequently on KUSF. That's all there is. Hasta mañana!