This Week in Non-Ukraine News
Trump and McConnell are making it harder for Republicans to win back the Senate and Ron DeSantis is being a jerk.
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 received this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up below.
Take advantage now of a 20 percent discount, celebrating the one-year anniversary of Truth and Consequences.
The Truth and Consequences Zoom Cast is back this week and this week Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation and an expert on Russia will be joining me on Friday at 12:30 to talk all things Russia and Ukraine. Sam is one of the smartest analysts I know when it comes to Russia so I could not be more excited to have him joining me tomorrow. Here’s the link and I’ll send around a reminder tomorrow morning.
For obvious reasons, the biggest news story in the world is Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but there are a few other things going on in the news that require some deeper analysis … so here it goes!
(You can listen to today’s newsletter by clicking here).
Thanks, I’m Good
The Arizona Republic reported today that the state’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, will not run for the US Senate this November against Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly. This news was not unexpected. For months, there have been indications that Ducey wasn’t interested in the run. Nonetheless, his decision highlights a growing challenge for Republicans in trying to take back the Senate this year — the party’s strongest candidates don’t want to run.
Though Kelly has raised $20 million and just won election to the Senate in November 2020, Ducey was seen as the strongest likely Republican candidate to challenge him. A similar phenomenon played out in New Hampshire, where the state’s popular governor, Chris Sununu decided not to challenge incumbent Maggie Hassan. Vermont Governor Phil Scott ruled out a run for the Senate seat being vacated by Patrick Leahy, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan demurred from challenging incumbent Chris Van Hollen, and former Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval won’t take on incumbent Jacky Rosen. All of these Republicans would have been formidable candidates. Now, Democrats will get to face off against a host of second-tier Republicans, which gives them a reasonable shot of holding on to their majority in the Senate.
Make no mistake; this is a by-product of Donald Trump’s deleterious impact on the party. Trump has been a frequent critic of Ducey because the governor certified the 2020 election in Arizona for President Biden. In June, he said that Ducey “could not get the nomination” for Senate and last month at a rally in the state, he continued to bad-mouth the governor. It’s hardly a surprise that Ducey wouldn’t want to run in a contested primary and have to deal with the slings and arrows from Trump and his supporters. Hogan and Scott have also been openly critical of the former president, and as we’re seeing in the Ohio Senate race, the surest path to winning a Republican Senate nomination is by sucking up to the former president.
The other issue is one that Sununu raised when he dropped out of the New Hampshire race earlier this year. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Sununu said he came away from meetings with Senate Republicans deeply dismayed.
“They were all, for the most part, content with the speed at which they weren't doing anything. It was very clear that we just have to hold the line for two years. OK, so I'm just going to be a roadblock for two years. That's not what I do,” Sununu said.
The governor said the message from virtually every GOP senator he chatted with — and he chatted with most of them — was that they plan to do little more with the majority they are fighting to win this November than obstruct President Joe Biden until, “hopefully,” 2024 ushers a Republican into the White House. “It bothered me that they were OK with that,” Sununu said.
More than that, Sununu was “bothered” by Republicans' seeming inability to answer this question: “I said, ‘OK, so if we're going to get stuff done if we win the White House back, why didn't you do it in 2017 and 2018?’” How did the Republicans Sununu spoke with answer his challenge? “Crickets. Yeah, crickets,” the governor said. “They had no answer.”
By adopting a scorched earth approach to legislating, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made serving in the Senate so unappealing that the party’s most talented figures have zero interest in joining him in Washington. This is bad for the party, but arguably it’s bad for the country too. Look who’s running instead? Herschel Walker in Georgia, Josh Mandel in Ohio, Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania. These are highly divisive figures who have little understanding of how government works and even less interest in actually legislating.
However, from a practical political perspective, this is great news for Democrats. The party’s most vulnerable incumbents, like Hassan, Rosen, Kelly, and Raphael Warnock in Georgia are facing lower-tier challengers. In open seats like Ohio and Pennsylvania, Democrats will be facing weaker opponents as well. Of course, this doesn't mean that Democrats are a lock to maintain control of the Senate. With a 50-seat majority, they hold the narrowest of margins and will be facing a brutal political environment come November. But they’ll have more than a fighting chance and largely have Trump and McConnell to thank for it.
Is Donald Trump Going To Jail?
To answer my own question ..probably not, but things are starting to get interesting.
In a court filing week in California, the congressional committee investigating January 6 said that “there was enough evidence to conclude that former President Donald J. Trump and some of his allies might have conspired to commit fraud and obstruction by misleading Americans about the outcome of the 2020 election and attempting to overturn the result.”
Among the potential charges outlined in the brief (and you can read the whole thing here) were obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the American people and common law fraud. To be clear, the January 6 commission has no jurisdiction to charge anyone, including the former president, with a crime. What it can do, however, is send a criminal referral to the Department of Justice against Trump and his allies. If they do so, and this week’s filing, suggests that’s likely to happen, it will put enormous pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland to initiate a criminal investigation of the former president and potentially bring charges against him. While Garland has, to date, avoided being dragged into political fights, I struggle to see how he avoids this one, particularly if the evidence amassed by the January 6 commission is compelling.
Since the commission is likely to go out of business if Republicans take back the House in November, I would expect that such a referral if it happens, will be made this year. This will be a huge political and historical moment. Never before has Congress initiated a criminal referral against a former president, and obviously never before has a former president been charged with a crime. It’s not crazy to think that Trump could be running for president in 2024 with a criminal indictment hanging over his head. In short, if you think American politics is fractured and chaotic now, you truly have seen nothing yet.
COVID Update
If there is one silver lining from COVID-19 it’s provided us with a compelling reminder that humans are a pretty impressive species. Here’s the latest data on global vaccination rates.
In all, 63.7 percent of the world’s population has received at least one vaccine shot — that’s just under 5 billion people.
Here in the US, the vaccination rate stands at 69 percent for those 5 and up and 81 percent have received at least one dose. That puts around 79th in the world, an absolutely embarrassing number.
On a more positive note, cases and hospitalizations are way down:
Unfortunately, on average more than 1,800 Americans are dying every day and in parts because of jerks like Ron DeSantis, the Governor of Florida …
This video is appalling and is emblematic of the remarkable hypocrisy of Republican politicians when it comes to Covid. Aside from playing down the pandemic, opening up his economy too soon, and modeling terrible behavior when it comes to vaccinations and mask-wearing, DeSantis has repeatedly pledged to a) defend parents’ rights on mask-wearing and vaccinations and b) has presented Florida as being a bastion of freedom from Covid restrictions. But, of course, for DeSantis and other Republicans, “freedom” is a one-way street. The decision to wear a mask and protect oneself from Covid is not a right to be protected — but rather something to be mocked. And keep in mind that the kids DeSantis is berating and pointing fingers are high school students.
Beyond the glaring contradictions, I’m not sure the politics of this are a winner for DeSantis. Watch the video above and tell me if you think these are the actions of a presidential candidate who is likely to build strong popular support among a broad cross-section of voters. Already, there’s been a backlash in Florida, led by parents outraged that the state’s governor lectured their kids in public. Being a jerk might be a winning formula for a Republican presidential primary. I’m not sure it translates as well beyond the confines of the GOP.
What’s Going On
ICYMI: my piece yesterday in the Daily Beast on why, as unpalatable as it might seem, the West needs to do everything it can to provide Putin with an off-ramp to war.
Experts weigh in on the missing Russian air force.
Axios put together a list of all the major corporations abandoning Russia.
President Biden’s decision to let European countries take the lead in sanctioning Russia is a very savvy move.
Last night’s “Wheel of Fortune” was extraordinary … though for all the wrong reasons.
More Ukrainian badassness:
Here’s some Russian badassness too:
Musical Interlude