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.
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I will be Zoom Chatting tomorrow at 12:30. We’ll talk GOP politics, the looming Trump indictments, and anything else that comes up. For those of you who joined me two weeks ago, it was one of the best chats I think I’ve ever done — mainly because of the great questions/observations from those who tuned in. So hoping we can do a repeat tomorrow! The link is here.
Broken Clock, Yada, Yada
So still no movement on the Trump indictment front. Hopefully, we’ll get that mugshot soon!
In the meantime, Trump is reaping the political rewards. Courtesy of Nate Cohn, here are the last three Republican polls from Monmouth (one of the more respected national pollsters).
That’s plus 15 for Trump and minus 12 for DeSantis. Some of this we can likely chalk up to Republican rallying around Trump as he is close to facing indictment, but the GOP numbers were moving in Trump’s direction well before that. I can’t speak authoritatively about why this is happening. Still, one has to imagine that Trump’s attacks on DeSantis and a less-than-stellar rollout of the Florida Governor’s pre-presidential campaign are playing a role. Or perhaps Republicans are just rallying around the guy they know and trust. Whatever the case, there’s plenty of reason to think these trend lines will continue.
A big part of the reason is that DeSantis and Trump are playing different political games. DeSantis is trying to avoid tangling with Trump. The former president is unloading with everything he’s got. Take, for example, this blistering statement he put out Wednesday about DeSantis:
It’s poorly written, features Trump’s bizarre capitalization tics, and is at various points incoherent … yet, this is a powerful indictment of DeSantis. Trump wallops him on the Social Security and Medicare issue, a real and underappreciated vulnerability for DeSantis. Don’t forget Trump used his defense of those two programs as political assets when he ran for the 2016 GOP nomination. I can’t speak to the veracity of the crime or education stats (it is Trump, after all), but that’s a solid political hit on a guy running on his record in Florida. Trump is absolutely right to poke holes in DeSantis’s oft-heard boast that people are moving to Florida. No shit. It’s warm and sunny there.
Finally, I’m impressed that the Trump team is hitting DeSantis in the place where he thinks he has the biggest advantage — his COVID record. It’s a bizarre attack in that he’s accusing DeSantis of opening up Florida too soon AND blames him for the huge number of COVID deaths in the state. Of course, opening up too soon and not imposing public health restrictions is why Florida’s per capita death rate from COVID is the 13th worst in the nation. But, any accusation that DeSantis locked things down could put him on the defensive, and I think that’s a nimble political move from the Trump camp.
Trump is making it as clear as day that he will take the gloves off on DeSantis and seek to define him before DeSantis has a chance to roll out his presidential campaign. Trump is dominating the airwaves, partly because he’s Trump but also because of the likely indictments. Also, and this is crucial: he’s already announced his candidacy. DeSantis is still in Florida, and likely won’t officially throw his hat in the ring for a few months. If Trump keeps hitting him like this, I don’t expect those poll numbers to dramatically improve any time soon.
I don’t often say this, but I think Trump’s strategy on DeSantis is smart and effective. He is doing everything he can to define DeSantis for GOP voters who don’t know him well, and it appears to be working.
The Wimp Factor
But something else is happening here, too — DeSantis won’t fire back. After Trump leaked word of his possible indictment this week, DeSantis initially refused to comment on it. But after grumbling from the Trump camp, he said this at a press conference.
“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” Mr. DeSantis said to chuckles from the crowd at the event.
“I just, I can’t speak to that,” he said. “But what I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago, to try to use something about porn star hush-money payments, you know, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office.”
He added, “And I think that that’s fundamentally wrong.” He said that the “real victims are ordinary New Yorkers” because of how Mr. Bragg handled his office. He accused the district attorney of “trying to virtue signal for his base.”
So a few things are going on here. First, DeSantis is trying to be too cute by half by mentioning why Trump is facing a looming criminal indictment. I actually don't mind that approach. It's a way to hit your opponent but indirectly. But what he said afterward is far more interesting (and far worse politically). Basically, he is regurgitating Trump's talking point about the Manhattan DA engaging in a political vendetta. That's a massive win for Trump. It means that virtually the entire GOP — including his key 2024 rivals — is carrying political water for him.
This is why I continue to believe DeSantis doesn't stand a chance against Trump. He won't take the gloves off and attack him. One could argue that DeSantis can't because the internal politics of the GOP don't allow for it. Maybe that's right — and maybe Trump is simply bulletproof. But I can say with certainty that if DeSantis isn't willing to directly attack the GOP frontrunner, he won't beat him.
The modern Republican Party is an alpha male party. Their electorate doesn't respond to policy initiatives; they fetishize toughness, resolve, and strength. Even those Republicans who didn't always agree with Trump's attacks generally appreciated his willingness to make non-politically correct statements. DeSantis likes to project a tough guy image when he's taking on liberals, but the fact that he is clearly afraid to challenge Trump is a huge political liability. It makes him look like a wimp. The subtext of Trump's statement above is not what he says but that he is willing to unload on DeSantis … and the Florida governor won't reciprocate.
Consider, for example, Trump's response after DeSantis said publicly that Trump is under scrutiny for paying off a porn star.
The former president took to Truth Social, posting: “Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!). I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!”
The post included a blurry and unverified picture of a man resembling Mr DeSantis allegedly partying with underage girls at a party with alcohol when he taught at a school in Georgia.
I’m not defending Trump’s statement here. It’s disgusting. But it shows that DeSantis is playing with a pop gun, and Trump is bringing a shotgun.
To further elucidate the point, DeSantis was interviewed this week by Piers Morgan, who hyped this interview as the Florida Governor’s first major pushback on Trump. Here are some excerpts published in a New York Post op-ed piece by Morgan.
DeSantis also slammed Trump’s chaotic, self-obsessed, divisive management style: “I also think just in terms of my approach to leadership, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda. You bring your own agenda in, you’re gone. We’re just not gonna have that. So, the way we run the government, I think, is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board, and I think that’s something that’s very important.”
As for the rude nicknames, he mocked: “I don’t know how to spell the sanctimonious one. I don’t really know what it means, but I kinda like it, it’s long, it’s got a lot of vowels. We’ll go with that, that’s fine. I mean, you can call me whatever you want, just as long as you also call me a winner because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida, is put a lot of points on the board and really take this state to the next level.”
Until now, DeSantis has never engaged with any of Trump’s regular attempts to provoke him and he doesn’t intend to make a habit of it.
“To me, it’s just background noise,” he said.
“It’s not important for me to be fighting with people on social media. It’s not accomplishing anything for the people I represent. So, we really just focus on knocking out victories, day after day, and if I got involved in all the undertow, I would not be able to be an effective governor. So, I don’t think it’s something that makes sense for me.”
No matter Morgan’s transparent effort to hype them up, this is laughably tame. DeSantis comes across as a guy who doesn’t want to fight with Trump. If that’s going to be his modus operandi for the rest of the campaign, he will lose. In fact, it’s quite possible that he already has.
One Last Thing …
To be clear, while I think Trump is running a good campaign against DeSantis and will likely benefit from impending criminal indictment(s), let’s not confuse the situation. This stuff might help Trump in the Republican nomination fight (which says everything you need to know about the depravity of the modern GOP), but it’s a killer for a presidential campaign. Trump doesn’t have a great chance of beating Biden in 2024, but if he’s indicted … forget it.
What’s Going On
Another day, another round of protests in Israel over the proposed judicial overhaul bill.
Really smart piece by my old friend Michael Hanna on the larger lessons from the war in Iraq.
Jessica Chen Weiss says don’t panic about China invading Taiwan … and she’s right.
There was a massive increase in antisemitic hate crimes last year.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with every aspect of this article, but I’ve told you before, and I'll say it again … always read Tom Edsall.
Kyrsten Sinema .. bad politician and bad co-worker.
As a friend said to me the other day, the fly that landed on Mike Pence’s head during the 2020 vice presidential debate has a better chance of getting elected president than he does.
Somehow this is not a parody:
Musical Interlude
I love Tom Waits, and I picked up one of my favorite records of his yesterday, “Nighthawks at the Diner.” This is the best cut!
The Dispatch said it best: DeSantis is assuming that the GOP Primary Electorate is rational. They're not. They want the guy who best matches their seething Ange. That isn't Ron