He's Not Going Away
I'm done with Donald Trump ... but sadly it seems Republican voters don't feel the same.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to subscribe, you can sign up here.
Not Him Again
For the Daily Beast, I expanded on my post last week about why I’m increasingly convinced that Donald Trump is the likely 2024 Republican nominee for president. Right on cue, Trump did one of his first campaign events this weekend, and not surprisingly, he went after Ron DeSantis, who is currently his chief rival for the nomination.
Former President Donald Trump took aim at Ron DeSantis Saturday, claiming the Florida governor and his team are “trying to rewrite history” regarding their Covid-19 pandemic response, and called the potential presidential run by his GOP rival “very disloyal.”
“There are Republican governors that did not close their states,” Trump told reporters while aboard his plane. “Florida was closed for a long period of time.”
“They’re trying to rewrite history,” he added.
This feels oddly unfair to DeSantis. Few governors have gone to greater lengths to ensure their state’s citizens are exposed to and die from COVID-19 … and he’s not even getting any credit from the former president. FFS, what does a Republican have to do to imperil the lives of their constituents and get rewarded for it?
However, of far greater interest were Trump’s accusations that DeSantis is acting disloyally. It’s further evidence that the former president’s beef with his key rival is not just about 2024 — it’s about his hurt feelings. Trump expects complete support from everyone around him (he, of course, offers none in return), and DeSantis has refused to provide it. Contrast what Trump said about DeSantis with the far different tone he took with former US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley,
While taking aim at DeSantis, Trump told reporters aboard his plane that Nikki Haley – who served as his ambassador to the United Nations – called him in recent days to inform him that she is considering launching a 2024 presidential bid.
“I talked to her for a little while, I said, ‘Look, you know, go by your heart if you want to run,’” Trump said. “She’s publicly said that ‘I would never run against my president, he was a great president.’”
Trump said he told Haley that she “should do it.”
If Haley decides to throw her hat in the ring, she’ll be going back on her 2021 pledge that she wouldn’t get in the race if Trump announced his decision to run. But she’s handling it the right way when dealing with a thin-skinned narcissist: Haley’s reaching out to Trump in advance and explaining her change of heart. DeSantis refused to get on bended knee and never said he wouldn’t run if Trump announced his bid. Both actions have clearly upset Trump, and it’s one of the reasons that he views him as “disloyal” (the other is that Trump famously endorsed him in the Florida GOP gubernatorial primary in 2018, and it’s probably the biggest reason why DeSantis is governor today). I suppose you can give DeSantis credit for refusing to kowtow to the former president, but if his goal is to outlast Trump for the GOP nomination, he’s gone about it in the worst way possible. He’s turned the most powerful figure in the modern GOP into an enemy, and as Omar reminds us, if you come at the king, you best not miss. Right now, DeSantis is shooting blanks.
The second key takeaway from this story is that Trump thinks Haley “should do it” and announce her presidential bid. Although usually, one would expect Trump to rail at Haley for her “disloyalty,” I suspect that Trump understands that the more candidates who get in the race, the better it is for him.
As I noted in the Daily Beast:
Right now, DeSantis has emerged as the most likely non-Trump GOP alternative. But rather than attack Trump—which Republicans have largely avoided for fear that he would post something mean about them on Truth Social—the 2024 wannabes are far more likely to go after DeSantis. This is not a unique dynamic. In presidential nominating contests, with crowded multi-candidate fields. The also-rans frequently try to tear down the candidate who is in second and ignore the one in first.
Haley getting in the race is good for Trump because, ultimately, he has more to fear from DeSantis than Haley — and she can do his bidding and dirty up the Florida Governor for him. As I wrote last week, the more crowded the GOP field, the better it is for the candidate with support from a solid 40 percent of Republicans and in a party where presidential nominating contests are winner-take-all.
It’s still super early now, but there’s no doubt that the 2024 GOP race is lining up in Trump’s favor.
Somebody Get A Sponge
In case you’re hoping that Republicans will unite and find a way to get rid of Trump … this latest piece from the Atlantic’s McKay Coppins won’t fill you with much hope.
The scenarios Republicans find themselves fantasizing about range from the far-fetched to the morbid. In his recent book Thank You for Your Servitude, my colleague Mark Leibovich quoted a former Republican representative who bluntly summarized his party’s plan for dealing with Trump: “We’re just waiting for him to die.” As it turns out, this is not an uncommon sentiment. In my conversations with Republicans, I heard repeatedly that the least disruptive path to getting rid of Trump, grim as it sounds, might be to wait for his expiration.
… Their rationale was straightforward: The former president is 76 years old, overweight, appears to maintain the diet of a college freshman, and believes, contrary to all known science, that exercise is bad for you. Why risk alienating his supporters when nature will take its course sooner or later? Peter Meijer, a former Republican representative who left office this month, termed this strategy actuarial arbitrage.
“You have a lot of folks who are just wishing for [Trump’s] mortal demise,” Meijer told me. “I want to be clear: I’m not in that camp. But I’ve heard from a lot of people who will go onstage and put on the red hat, and then give me a call the next day and say, ‘I can’t wait until this guy dies.’”
This is the party of tough guys, rugged individualism, and telling it like it is … incapable of standing up to a narcissistic sociopath who has destroyed their party and offering their public support, all the while secretly hoping he drops dead. Profiles in courage, every last one of these mooks.
Stop Whining About The Refs …
I’m a Detroit Lions fan … we know pain and bad reffing more than any other fan base in America. Also, I had a lot of money riding on the Bengals winning yesterday’s AFC Championship Game, so I was not too happy about the outcome. But this is a late hit, and the refs had to call it (that penalty ended up costing the Bengals the game).
This isn’t even a close call, and for those who argue that the refs shouldn’t decide a game like this — they’re right. This is why the Bengals player shouldn’t have committed an egregious penalty that the refs were required to call! Now Bengals fans will complain about other missed calls. There was a block in the back on the punt that preceded this play, and lots of people think there were holds on Mahomes’s run (my verdict: meh). But there are missed holds and blocks in the back on pretty much every play in the NFL. It’s the nature of modern football. The Bengals absolutely should have won this game. That they didn’t is not the fault of the refs.
RIP Tom Verlaine
“Marquee Moon” is a phenomenal record — a masterpiece of the punk era. But it’s the title cut that is truly transcendent. Picking one’s favorite piece of music is practically an impossible exercise. Choosing a favorite song … I’m not sure it can be done. It all depends on mood and context, and that is constantly changing. But suffice it to say, for me, “Marquee Moon” will always be in the conversation.
My favorite memory of “Marquee Moon” is that I first heard it sometime in the early ‘00s. (I could only curse the fact that I’d been alive for 20-plus years since its release and had been deprived of the brilliance of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd’s dueling guitar solos at the tail end of this song). Not long after my initiation to “Marquee Moon,” I traveled to Philly to see the White Stripes at the Trocadero Theater (one of the ten greatest live shows I’ve ever attended). I was joined by a college friend named Pratik. Afterward, we went to a bar with a stellar jukebox, which included “Marquee Moon” (for the younger kids, you can ask your parents what a jukebox is). He had never heard the tune, so I played it for him, and I have a vivid memory that about halfway through (the song is about 10 minutes long), I asked him what he thought, and he just shook his head and said, “this is fucking genius.” That’s how you know a good friend who has fantastic musical taste. They hear “Marquee Moon,” … and they immediately get it!
What’s Going On
Read David Wallace-Wells on the United Kingdom’s 20-year “own goal.”
Interesting piece on how Ronald Reagan convinced himself that he didn’t sell arms for hostages.
This is a great look back at “Marquee Moon.”
An Air Force general told those under his command that the US would be at war with China in two years … and somehow, he hasn’t yet been relieved of his command.
Ninety-six minutes of Larry Davis and Richard Lewis arguing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”? Yes, please.
Today In Bob Dylan
I’ll have much more to say about the newest entry in the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series, “Fragments,” which covers Dylan’s recording of “Time Out Of Mind.” Initial verdict: it’s fantastic. The remix of the record makes up disc one, and, for me, it casts the album in an entirely new light. Gone is the swampy sound from Daniel Lanois’s production. Instead, the vocals are turned up in the mix, making them front and center, the instrumentation is crisper without all the reverb and echo, and Dylan’s voice has, perhaps, never sounded better. This new version of “Love Sick” is simply gorgeous …
… and so too is “Standing In The Doorway.”