White House Race- January 13, 2024

It was another wild week in American politics as all eyes now turn to Iowa. Monday night will see what is expected to be by far, the coldest Iowa Caucus in the event's history, with much snow blanketing the Hawkeye State. Just how motivated will be Republicans to come out amid the elements to vote for Donald Trump? How about those who might be motivated to vote against him? I am sort of glad I do not live there. I would have to risk life and limb to cast an unenthusiastic vote for Nikki Haley.

This is the first time since the Caucuses became a thing over 50 years ago, where Democrats will not be taking part. The entire event and the counting was botched four years ago, so they scrapped it altogether. Typically, an incumbent President does not have much to worry about in the Iowa Caucus when running for reelection, but Democrats can stay home (and maybe watch football) entirely. Joe Biden will also not be taking part in the following week's New Hampshire Primary, although he is expected to win that contest as a write-in candidate. Despite all the Democrats that do not want Biden to be renominated, Dean Phillips is failing to attract votes to show up to Granite State events and Marianne Williamson is pretty much only a thing for young leftists on TikTok.

So, what will happen with Republicans on Monday besides the steadfast efforts of Asa Hutchinson finishing in last place (I am not bothering to count Ryan Binkley)? Well, Donald Trump is going to win Iowa, for the first time as a non-incumbent. This time though, he is basically considered the incumbent as many of his supporters refuse to admit he was defeated in the 2020 general election. Will Trump surpass 50 percent of the Iowa Republican vote? I would tend to be somewhat surprised if he falls short, and if he did, that would be a substantial story leading into New Hampshire. He will claim a "complete and total victory" regardless.

Thus, the big story line is who will finish in second place and who will finish in third place between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. What will the margin be between them and how far will each of them be behind Trump? The always highly anticipated Des Moines Register Poll is going to be released in less than a half hour but I hope to have already clicked "Publish" by then. We will see. Maybe I will stall. The winter weather in Chicagoland this weekend, much like Iowa, is horrific.

Conventional wisdom is that DeSantis should beat Haley. After all, he has been working the state in person far more than she has been, and has the support of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (both officially and via her burner Twiitter/X account.) If DeSantis were to finish behind Haley in Iowa, that will be the story of the night. It is hard to see his campaign surviving beyond Monday night if that were to be the case. Already, word has come down that immediately after Iowa, DeSantis will head to South Carolina and not to Iowa, and one can surmise that team "Never Back Down" has backed down and conceded they are not going to do very well in New Hampshire. Haley can probably claim a "win" even if she is a few points behind DeSantis in the voting results. While DeSantis is doing poorly in New Hampshire, it also has to be kept in mind that his getting out of the race might help Trump against Haley, at least in the short-term, and possibly beyond that.

A big development occurred this week which relates less to Iowa than to New Hampshire. Chris Christie dropped out of the race late in the day on Wednesday. It is expected that almost everyone who was supporting the former New Jersey Governor and who will choose to stay involved in the Republican nominating process, will gravitate to Haley, perhaps unenthusiastically, as yours truly did a few weeks ago now. In making a lengthy campaign suspension announcement before a New Hampshire audience, Christie did not endorse Haley or anybody else. In fact, he was petty adamant in going after her and all the other non-Hutchinson Republican candidates who remain or who used to be in the race. Christie's statement was actually pretty bitter and I cannot say I disagreed with it. He said that anybody who is unwilling to say that Donald Trump is unfit to be President is also unfit. Yes, I agree, although I also realize that most of the candidates know he is, but just refuse to say so out of political cowardice. This was a very unique campaign withdrawal event in many ways. I found the bit about Chris Christie quoting Benjamin Franklin historically speaking about "a Republic, if you can keep it" to be quite eloquent though. Indeed, that is what we are facing in 2024 in the years ahead.

While they should have been popping bottles over at Haley HQ over Christie doing what needed to be done to perhaps help her, they could not have been happy about the fact that right before the event, snippets of a conversation the exiting candidate had with journalists were captured on a "hot mic." In those comments, Christie said something about Ron DeSantis having recently called him "petrified" but the rest of that was cut out. In speaking about Nikki Haley, Christie was caught saying she is going to "get smoked" and that "she is not up to this." That is clearly far from an endorsement of her candidacy and I do not think Christie will actually go as far as to endorse her next week. The DeSantis and Trump campaigns both jumped on these comments as a way to attack Haley. If I were doing "damage control" for Christie, he could have perhaps claimed he was speaking only in the context of what he expected to happen in that evening's one on one Iowa debate between her and Haley. Christie clearly feels like he does not owe her direct assistance, although there should be no doubt she will benefit in New Hampshire from his leaving the race. I also sort of wonder if Christie intended for the so called "hot mic" moments to go public when he said them.

I watched much but could not stomach to catch every second of the DeSantis-Haley debate. From a political history perspective, I think this is the first one on one Republican Presidential primary debate since Reagan and Bush in 1980. Four years ago, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders had at least one one-one debate and that one, like the 1980 Republican meeting, was far friendlier than this week's event. It was basically a draw. DeSantis, who is very dishonest in general, but also very good at appealing in soundbites to the conservative base, probably helped himself in that regard, while Haley came across as a stronger general election candidate. Many have remarked that she sort of had a hard time defending herself against all of DeSantis's attacks. Instead, over and over and over again, she asked debate watchers to check out her campaign's website called desantislies.com. Besides being very critical of each other on just about every question asked, both candidates did take further steps to show why they are a better candidate for the party than Trump. The DeSantis theme is that Trump turned the country over to Dr. Fauci during Covid. Haley says that "chaos" follows Trump at every turn. Still though, neither were willing on the CNN airwaves to directly say that Trump was unfit or was unfaithful to the Constitution.

Thus, the two candidates going after each other more than him, probably only helps Trump. For the first hour, the other two were debating, Trump was part of a Fox News Town Hall in Iowa. (Both Haley and DeSantis had similar appearances which aired slightly before Prime Time last week.) From what I saw and what has been reported, Trump was calmer than he normally was and seemed well prepared to answer various questions. It did not seem like he was challenged at all though, either by audience members or by the two journalists moderating. One of the was Brett Baier, whom last year, conducted a pretty hard-hitting interview of the former President, in which he said many crazy things, but Baier went far easier this time, for whatever reason.

 

I also wanted to mention that right after the debate, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who has endorsed Haley, went on CNN and did no favors to his candidate. When questioned if he could still support Trump as the nominee, even if he becomes a convicted felon, Sununu was all "of course I would, why are you surprised?" He could have at least dodged the question. Furthermore, he went back on some of his past statements and in defense of himself be willing to vote for Trump, said that it was clear America would support Trump over Biden and Trump would win. It seems like he stepped on what at least should be Haley's main talking point which should be that Trump is too toxic with many Americans to win. Haley and her camp ought to be quite pissed off at Sununu after that interview. What I saw cemented the suspicions I have about Sununu. There is something about him I have long found off-putting.

As mentioned, the weather in Iowa in advance of the Caucus is unlike anything that has happened there before past contests. The candidates, including Trump, have had to cancel several in person events, and are instead relying on tele town-halls. The traditional volunteer door knocking is also severely curtailed. There is still lots of goofiness there. Vivek Ramaswamy, in the dying days of his campaign, is campaigning with and touting the endorsement of former Congressman Steve King of Iowa, who was driven out in a primary a few years back after defending the concept of white supremacy. Back then, Republican Party leaders were actually concerned about those kinds of associations. That does not appear to be the case anymore, but I will note that King is endorsing a non-white Hindu candidate. It just has to be remembered that race and religion aside, Ramaswamy is despicable.In the meantime, DeSantis has been campaigning in part with isolationist Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, During the debate, Haley tried (not very successfully perhaps) to make an issue of that by pointing out that Massie was the one Republican House Member who recently refused to cast a symbolic vote to support Israel.

Then, there is Laura Loomer,a true blue crazy lady of the first degree. Donald Trump seems to know her well and has called her "special" in the past. Don Jr. has said she is going to be the White House Press Secretary in the next Administration. She is in Iowa on behalf of Trump (who is paying her expenses?) and been acting as expected. First, she claimed that Nikki Haley and her "friends in the Defense Industry" are somehow manipulating the weather in Iowa to make it cold and snowy in order to somehow hurt Trump. Yesterday, she was following DeSantis around with her cellphone or some sort of camera and confronting him as she chased him down calling him all sorts of nasty names and lobbying wild attacks while the Florida Governor awkwardly attempted to ignore her. I cannot feel sorry for DeSantis but my goodness, Loomer is a complete nutjob. I think the weather will help Trump actually but I have not heard those sort of weather based theories since left-wing wackos claimed Dick Cheney used the Haliburton lasers to target New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina to kill black people.

The Ann Selzer Iowa poll is out! Trump 48, Haley 20, DeSantis 16. I can imagine relieved glee from the Haley folks and probably a lot of disappointed DeSantis backers. Also, not exactly great numbers for Trump. We will see what happens on Monday.

Outside of Iowa and the weather nationally, this week was quite busy. Taiwan just held an election and chose to keep in power the most anti-China candidate. I am inclined to be happy about that, but this is very much a hot-spot globally. Elsewhere, the government of South Africa disgracefully is accusing Israel of "genocide" in the World Court. They ought to get a dictionary first. Then a brain and a conscience.

House Republicans are now proceeding on moving to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Majorkis. If it passes the House, it is not going to go anywhere in the Senate. Also, Hunter Biden and his lawyer crashed a House Committee hearing and an absolute political circus broke out carried on live television, before the young Biden and his entourage dramatically departed as soon as Marjorie Taylor Green started to give a statement. Perhaps, she was going to ask him about his genitals. Moments before, Congresswoman Nancy Mace kept it classy by publicly claiming Hunter had "no balls." Maybe MTG could show her some photos she saved. The whole thing was a crazy stunt by the Hunter Biden camp (and yes, his Dad probably knew all about it), but they did manage to make House Republicans looks pretty foolish. Democrats on the committee definitely seemed to have had the heads up. Hunter is claiming he wants to testify publicly before the committee with cameras rolling (though frankly it would be dumb for him to do anything but plead the Fifth under oath) and Republicans only want him to testify in private, so they can work on spinning the testimony to their advantage. So, by not wanting to hear from Biden live on television, those Republicans looked like total hypocrites. I doubt any non-news junkies even cared much about any of this though.

 

There continues to be fallout over Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the fact that he was intensive care for days and that nobody at the White House even knew about it. The Secretary has now admitted he has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. I feel for him in that situation and wish him well, but his actions were inexcusable. The American people generally have a right to know about the health and location of high ranking government officials, but especially, it is crucial for the President or the President's top level team to know what is going with the Secretary of Defense at all times. Such a matter is a legitimate reason for Austin to resign. He has apologized and said it will not happen again. It is really not worth saying too much more over this. Biden as President has basically refused to fire anyone at all for any reason. Frankly, there is no way he is going to fire the nation's first black Defense Secretary during an election year.

In other foreign policy news, President Biden ordered airstrikes on Houthi rebels who have recently been attacking U.S. troops in the Middle East. Most Republicans (although seemingly not Trump) support this action and say if anything, it is overdue. Elements of Biden's own party are quite upset though, saying he must have Congressional authorization to order any such thing. The fact of the matter is that Presidents of both parties have taken similar actions in the defense of the United States' national security. They were right to do so and so is Biden here. Full stop. Either during or after the 2024 election, Democrats are going to have to contend with the wing of their party that is very far to the left. An upcoming event is that "several hundred" members of the federal government are going to "walk-out" on the job to join a protest of Biden and the United States' support of Israel. If you ask me, every single one of those people should be immediately fired. There is not a chance Biden will do that though. Recently, members of the Biden-Harris campaign signed an anonymous letter, which of course was written to be released publicly. in which they blasted the support of the candidate they are getting paid to work for over his support of Israel. His own freaking campaign staffers.

Oh, I almost forgot, there is more drama on Capitol Hill. Many House Republicans are up in arms over a spending deal agreement that Speaker Mike Johnson had already announced as done. There is talk they could vacate the chair and oust him. Wouldn't that be something? Some anonymous House Democrats have claimed they would have to save Johnson's job if it came to that. Since he recently officially endorsed Trump for President though, why would they do that? For now, Johnson is saying the deal cut with Chuck Schumer is still on, but clearly, things are now very tense for him within his House Republican Conference.

 

Then, there was Trump, who visited two different courtrooms this week. It might be his most effective method of campaigning. He actually was allowed to deliver part of the closing statement in his New York civil trial, although the Judge shut him up before too long and it will not make much of a difference anyway, as Trump already knows.

 

More significantly, three federal judges  head from Trump's lawyers in Washington D.C., with the defendant in attendance, in regards to the legal theory that Presidents must have complete immunity for anything they do in office. During the questioning, Trump's lawyer basically was forced to admit that they were taking the position that a President could order Seal Team Six to kill a political rival and be immune from prosecution if they were not impeached and convicted first in Congress. During Trump's second Impeachment trial, many Senators said they would vote to acquit because the criminal courts should be responsible for determining if what a President did was illegal.

This claim made in court was widely denounced and is believed to have sunk whatever hope they had in the case. If one really thinks about it though, it is about the craziest and most un-American thing imaginable. A President already has the leeway to do whatever they feel must be done in regards to using the U.S. military in the name of national defense. Assassinating a political opponent is not one of those things. Trump believes it should be though and any American who might vote for Donald Trump needs to reconcile themselves with being on the same side as such complete and utter lunacy.

They claim a President needs to be impeached and convicted first before they can be charged criminally. Putting aside my belief that in this day and age. I do not think there is anything a Republican or Democrat might do that will ever get 67 Senators to vote against them in a trial, let us think about this more deeply. Trump's legal argument is that Joe Biden, 81 years old and struggling in the polls, could use the military he commands, to "take Trump out", and then immediately resign so that he cannot be impeached as a former President (which was the argument the Trump people made in early 2021.) I guess on the way out of office, he would also be able to bomb Trump Tower and Mar-A-Lago as well.