Debate is boring so far (1/3 through) without Trump. Ramaswamy is the most lively candidate there. Trump-Tucker Carlson interview was more entertaining.

It was very dull, everything sounded canned and talking pointy.

Moderate swing voters in wing states decide GEs and moderate GOP/Dems decide primaries.

I thought Nikki Haley won the debate, kinda by a lot. Came off as a likable persona but had a legitimate signature moment of toughness owning Vivek . Said some 'uncomfortable truths' that deep down, most Republicans know to be true on abortion, GOP spending, and Trump electability. She seemed like both a serious, thoughtful leader AND someone who average person could stand to have on their TV and web browser all the time. Another performance like this and I think it will move her poll numbers quite a bit.

"Losers" of the debate in context, in my view, are DeSantis and Vivek. Both demonstrated the absolute wrong type of energy. DeSantis answers were fine, but as everyone else notes, his energy is forced and awkward, the yelling comes off just weird. It's easy to see why so many are openly doubting his ability now, Haley came off 100x more ready for prime time. Vivek, as others noted, was flat out embarrassed by both Chris Christie with the debate funniest moment and by Nikki Haley. His mannerisms and tone through the debate were just comical akin to a salesman.

I would say Mike Pence over performed the very low expectations he had. He had a number of very solid moments from calling Vivek a rookie to the well deserved credit he was given for his January 6th actions.

Chris Christie did well given that Trump wasn't on the stage with him. Christie's style excites people looking for a Mike Tyson esque knock out punch, but on a stage surrounded mostly by people he likes, he was pretty tame. His effort to push his success in blue states aren't nothing. He came off as the adult in the room for giving Pence glowing praise for his actions on January 6th. Christie took the world right out of many peoples mouths when he said "I've had enough of this guy already" and compared him to ChatGPT.

Tim Scott was very blah. He didn't hurt himself but didn't really help himself, either. Other 2 governors are obviously not competitive, though it doesn't help Trump to hear anyone on a major stage, even if that person is Asa Hutchinson, just destroying him so eloquently as he did.

I will say, I think it is a very serious mistake for Trump to give people like Haley this undivided platform to look very President while at the same time Trump is being arrested yet again. Undecided voters are getting the chance to see them as serious contenders, Trump is taking fire with virtually no defense present. I would guess that Nikki Haley helped herself significantly, while Pence and Christie are viewed a bit more seriously by some, while DeSantis and Scott are equal/a bit ahead of where they were. Another debater such as this and I think all of them will have garnered a fair amount of support.

It might not be seem like a lot, but should each of them gain a few points in the polls, and/or especially if one of them really emerges as a serious candidate, that could be bad news for Trump. The chances of a true contender and more vocal hunger for a non-Trump candidate will only grow. These types of performances make all of them feel like serious, legitimate candidates. ESPECIALLY if Trump ever joins them on the stage and only wants to complain about the past. As voting gets closer, beating Biden and electability will be the main thing on voters minds - it will be a serious issue for Trump if Haley, DeSantis, Christie Scott, or Pence emerge as as the more GE friendly consensus.

Semi-wondering if Trump would ever consider dropping out in exchange for throwing his entire support around a more GE friendly candidate who would promise him pardons and security.

Trump is a cult. This logic does not apply

Yeah unfortunately the only way Trump loses the primary is if every single non Trump cultist Republican votes for the same candidate. And that’s unlikely.

I think the buzz around Trump's legal challenges is going to really accelerate. Beating Biden will concentrate the minds of voters and if there is a truly clear front runner opposite DT, this will become very competitive.

I think martyring him is making him stronger in the primary at the moment

Nobody outside of the shrinking MAGA bubble buys him a martyr. The idea that he is some Nelson Mandela figure is hilarious to 85% of the country who see a legitimate criminal, and an exceptionally annoying at that. Elections are about the future, all this guy talks about is the past. I would go a step further and say that I don't think Donald Trump has gained 1 supporter since mid November, 2020. I do suspect that he has shed quite a bit of what he had previously, and we hear from these people more and more as these charges come out.

Look at what Trump has done to the party. Georgia, on the national level, is decisively blue at the moment, as is seemingly Arizona. Kansas and Kentucky are voting in huge droves on liberal positions for state wide items. Trump didn't accomplish much as president aside from tax cuts and Supreme Court, and good lord is the supreme court hurting the party nationally. Beyond that, the vast majority of people see him a legitimate criminal. This isn't the same a Billary scandal. Trump was caught red handed with numerous obvious crimes. He lost to Biden by quite a bit and his national support has no doubt shrunk since then. More than anything Trump lost to Biden because life with him every day at the helm was exhausting. The MAGA bubble is shrinking by the day and nobody else wants to go back to it.

These things are always the same. They can go back and fourth during summer-winter months leading up the primaries, but the ultimate argument always turns to "Who has the best shot at winning?". Trump is a known commodity and a highly toxic one to most people.

Sure, I don't DeSantis is proving to be what he was hyped to be, but he has time to improve. No doubt Haley looked the best and most post-debate polls are showing a large bump for her. If this continues, she will have legitimate momentum.

Mark my words - from a big picture strategy view, the contrast of Trump repeatedly being arrested against some of the other candidates looking presidential and making sense is a highly negative dynamic for him.This weeks debate is more of a foundation building exercise as is the one September which likely partially explains the minimal amount of direct attacks on Trump. As Trump's cases play out, if Haley or DeSantis or even Christie continue to grow, I think there is a serious chance Trump outright loses the nomination.

Why are his polling numbers going up right now you think then? It appears to me the base is rally around him in a sign of solidarity.

Personally, I put virtually no faith in pre-debate polls. They always weigh name recognition far too much. We haven't had anything like this since Al Gore floated with the idea of running again in 2004. Trump's name is in the news more than anyone else right now, that will translate to poll jumps until people start taking the primaries a bit more seriously. Mid November onwards is where polls will really begin to reveal dynamics. Electability is going to emerge as the dominant issue and its a huge problem for him. We saw his numbers drop fast after last November, its going to happen again as he is in court while others are out there building themselves up.

Just my opinion, but Haley helped herself a lot in debate 1. Another performance or 2 like that I suspect she will have some real momentum.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 2172121527

Some very noteworthy shifts here. The DeSantis number & Haley growth should really concern Trump because the next few months show them on opposite trajectories from a PR perspective. The more voters see of them in a presidential format, the better their numbers will become.

The general is a different story with the sheer amount of J6 milking that's happened the last few years probably landing on the suburban voters that went for Biden last time, in my opinion the majority of Republican voters see the indictments as political and that the DOJ is abusing their power to help Biden win the election. If that wasn't the popular position for conservatives, I don't think we would see establishment GOP like McCarthy be on Trump's side with anti-DOJ position and calling Biden the one who should really be investigated for corruption.

Early polls might not be the most meaningful normally, but I think it is when a guy is up like 40 points.

Respectfully, I don't see it as being viewed as milking in the eyes of 95% of swing voters. No candidate in recent history has done anything resembling the efforts of Trump personally and his team in contesting the election. People say the legal actions against him are unprecedented, well, his own behavior was unprecedented. Shack, you need to realize that a huge chunk of the people saying things such as "if I did what Hillary did, I would be in jail!" in 2016 watched Trump lead & do things that are far worse. A huge amount these people found his post election efforts disgusting and unquestionably a leading cause for the national embarrassment that was January 6th. No, 1/6 was not another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, but it's a permanent stain on that building.

TLDR: Swing voters saw him a drama-filled reality tv circus BEFORE the election, and it cost him greatly. His behavior after the election, not the milking of 1/6, has dramatically reinforced this belief.



Trump has multiple cases against him and they vary as far as how "political" they feel vs. how justified they feel. The falsifying of business records feels minor and probably doesn't happen if he isnt President, but reinforces that Trump cant be trusted to every normal person. The classified material trial seems to range in perspectives of seriousness, but it still makes Trump look like a fool for not complying earlier on and there are many on the right who view national security as game changing. The federal 1/6 trial is serious business for the reasons mentioned above. The GA trial might be the most damning because he is literally on tape asking them to tilt the election. To the average person, the collective effect of these charges is mentally exhausting and has way too much smoke for there to be no fire.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by establishment GOP being on Trumps side. Mitch McCarthy and John Thune are the highest Republicans in the government and they have both basically said that they think Trump should go to jail. Most of the other candidates are establishment GOP and they're running against Trump for a reason.

Would also note that, in the eyes of many, the Hunter Binder legal issues aren't happening to him if he isnt the presidents son. That goes both ways. Except Hunter isnt president.



40 points is better than being up 10 of course, but read the conditions. It's a reflection of trumps name recognition and preexisting base. That lead is going to shrink quickly with the carious trajectories. Whether it disappears altogether is a different story.

The hush money thing is so weak and political there's no need to even discuss it.

The Mar a Lago thing might depend on more info like what's in the boxes, but I can guess it wasn't something super damning like "top secret nuclear document" by how they waited like a year and a half of asking for them and multiple subpoenas before they raided, and if it was anything that damning it probably gets leaked immediately after the raid when DOJ would be looking to make themselves look good when they were being criticized. The "smoking gun" audio tape, because the tone he's talking with the reporter is light it makes it complex to judge in terms of how much is the words being used seriously or not, when talking in that tone you can say things like "If I was president I could have declassified this" and plausibly be enough be talking in a joking way about a non-classified article or something. Without having the document which I don't believe they have, I don't know if that tape can be used on its own. Guessing they will try to trip him up on the actual act of not returning the boxes on time instead of what's in it, which is like when the FBI charged people in Russiagate for process crime not answering questions to the FBI correctly instead of anything related to the supposed conspiracy.

The federal 1/6 charge, sometimes it takes me a minute to remember what it was compared to the hush money, Mar a Lago or Georgia ones, because it has so little that it's actually tangibly accusing him of, most of the indictment reads as saying it's bad that he called the election stolen. My understanding is that in 1876, there was chaos election cause half the states disagreed on the winner, and as a republic not a democracy the states had full power at that time to pick their electors however they wanted. So to avoid future situations like this, they gave the vice president power in Electoral Count Act to decide which electors to count. Trump read this as Pence having the power to reject the electors. Regardless of whether the Supreme Court would have agreed or not based on their reading of the ECA, what makes this a crime instead of exhausting his final legal opportunity to challenge the election?

The Georgia case seems to be built around "alternate electors" idea. Basically, if Trump was successful overturning the election and declared the winner by either the Supreme Court in mid Dec or the above Pence plan, the same electors who would've voted for him if he had own the election normally in Nov., would have now come back into play to vote for Trump. They are treating this a nefarious criminal scheme to the point of arresting the lawyers who gave any advice on it. As for the phone call thing, sure they have a case, but is it worth putting a president in jail for assuming intent behind words that could have been just using them poorly, seems extreme to me.

In obvious political move they're trying to do all this trials before the election. I think I heard Fani Willis requested a trial in 4 months despite in being a 19 defendant RICO case. This is shorter than people wait for minor driving offenses and stuff.

Sure if you stretch you can arrest him for "obstructing" the FBI enough during their search or his bad sentence in the Georgia call, but even those, in reality, even that is just an excuse for people who have been trying to end Trump's political career for years with things like Russiagate, Ukrainegate, etc., if it comes by way of him tripping up on a phone call it's just a useful substitute for the real reasons they think it's a net positive to put him in jail. The Democrats and DOJ are acting to impress the far left who are in reality, the actual cult in this era and driven by emotion, not reason, and their emotion has them in pitchfork mode of wanting to see Trump go to jail. They tried buying into the long way with Russiagate stuff but at this point are willing to settle for anything.

I agree that it probably doesn't happen to him if he isnt president. But just an fyi those charges are very common.



See how that one plays out but legal community seems to agree he's fucked. The idiot should have returned them when asked. Instead he has insiders now testifying against him.



There is honestly a treasure trove of legitimate evidence to support what he was charged with. NYT summed it up well:



There are mountains of testimony and evidence that Trump was formally told by the decision-making officials that was no fraud, no evidence of fraud, etc. Yet he continued to push the phony scheme as far it was possibly go. This isn't a random "push the boundaries" type fo thing, it is the Presidential election. This is the definition of the type of behavior that will regulated and punished if it occurs. His Chief of Staff and Vice President testified against him. Ignorance or stupidity aren't innocence.



You should really make peace with the fact that Trump did somer very wrong things after Election Day and he is going to seemingly be punished for them. No other President in modern history has done so for anyone to claim its political retribution is bizarre and baseless.



Here is a key concept to fully grasp behind all of the election regulations and laws.

When one takes an oath of public office, they cease to be viewed and judged as "John Doe, the person". They become the physical embodiment of the majority of voters will in self governance. The position of President is the highest of all, it is sacred. Here we have the person in the most systematic powerful using every power at his disposal to reject the will of voters. It goes against the very concept of self government.

The idea that this isn't "a big deal" as some have said, or isn't with putting him in jail over, as you have said, is absurd. If anything, this is the exact type of behavior which warrants jail. Look at what happened to Nixon for so much less. There is a reason that many of the lawyers involved ala Eric Herschmannn and Pat Cipollone - absolute Trump die hards - that WERE NOT charged because they were on the record, at the time, warning Trump that what he was doing was illegal and needed to stop, but DT proceeded anyway. There are dozens of people from inside and outside the organization testifying that Trump knew his statements about the election were wrong but he continued, and that he knew the fraudulent electors piece was illegal, but he continued anyway. He is deep shit legally. He is used to claiming he didn't know, blah blah blah, but legal folks aren't buying it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Herschmann
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Cipollone
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barr

You should familiarize yourself with the open testimony of these 3 before going any further on this end. They are MAGA bubble die hard attorneys employed by The White House. The Attorney General, The White House Counsel, and Senior Special Legal Advisor.

When these 3 are saying Trump knowingly and willfully broke the law, you know it's true. Now it seems Mark Meadows and Mike Pence have said the same thing.



To be blunt, if you are more outraged about minor logistical efforts ala the speed of the trial or it being a RICO case than you by what the evidence clearly says about candidate Trump, the only 'obvious political moves' from that POV are from people who clearly care more about Trump than the country or the rules that have been applied to its leaders for centuries.



It is easy for Trump supporters to generalize all of his bad things together, or to "flood the zone" as Bannon likes to say, to the point where there is so much shit out there that it confuses people and it all blends together.

Do not lump "russiagate" and "ukraingate" together. Russiagate seems to have been totally overblown. Ukrainegate was proven despicable behavior by Trump. its would be despicable behavior by Biden if he did the same. Russiagate and Ukrainegate are not even closet to the same. The people I see now trying to use Russiagate to discredit the obviously legit election-related cases against Trump, frankly, should go take an IQ test. They are beyond different.

And no, the punishment heading Trump's way is not the Dems and DOJ trying to impress the far left. Mitch McConnell of all people has said Trump should be arrested for his post election stuff.

It is frankly bizarre that anyone can fail to grasp the legal significance of a sitting President entirely aware that all legitimate and authoritative sources say he lost so he schemes to circumvent the system and will of the people to stay in power. That individual, from whatever party or background, obviously deserves punishment. Fortunately it seems like Trump is going to get it.

And thank god, there are MUCH better and more serious Republicans who actually wants to run the country, not use it as a platform attention.

There’s been “legal experts" saying the walls are closing in and this is the beginning of the end for Trump since 2017, but in this case, I agree he is in trouble this time as all it would take is a jury full of people who made up their mind before the trial started that he’s guilty, but that is separate from whether it would be justified.

You are trying to attach the credibility using a general argument instead of attacking the main point of this specific argument. Many are saying this is basically an open and shut case. The guy is a fool for how he handled it.



All it will take is a fair jury hearing the on-the-record testimony from Trumps personal lawyers that he refused to handed over subpoenaed classified documents followed by the on-the-record testimony from Trumps personal mar a Lago employees that he both showed the documents to people and later instructed them to be destroyed.

What do you think this is? The guy clearly broke laws here, it is really strange to see people trying to spin it as biased against him. Make peace with the fact that the leader of the cult, to which so many have attached their personal identity and pride to, has done a lot of stupid, illegal things. DT is responsible for his actions, not Biden, or Hillary, or anyone.

I don't "appeal to authority" in this era, it's impossible the separate the ones giving their honest opinion and the schills used to tell the far left activists exactly what they want to hear, too many people in this era are now more interested in fake stories that reassure their beliefs over ones trying to be true that challenge it.



I don't think he is accused of trying to destroy documents. I think there is a defendant who asked about whether they can delete security footage (which they ended up not doing), and he said "the boss" asked him if they could, which may or may not refer to Trump.

Like I said if they want to charge him for not dealing with the FBI correctly or having a bad line in Georgia call, they might be able to get away with it, but those things would be clearly just stand ins to get rid of him for political reasons, just like it doesn't matter what Putin claimed Navalny was guilty of, we know the real reasons he put him in jail.

Except he is.

This is what I get frustrated with. This comparison. Should Trump be excluded from being charged for crimes because people will think it is politically motivated? Why do you think he ran to begin with? He wants people to make this comparison so that he can win in the court of public opinion.

That is an absolutely absurd statement. Just shockingly out there. Putin is a tyrant rigging things in his favor. The Democrats are facing 7 non-Trump candidates with the exact same policies. And guess what - if a Nikki Haley or Ron Desantis beats Biden in November 2024, he will leave and they well become President.

You want political witch hunts? Bill Clinton was impeached over lying about getting a blow job.

Be serious, Shack.

Don't discount the potential for a massive disaster to improve DeSantis poll position

That’s what I am wandering too.

There's only one thing people care about: everything is so fucking expensive now. Corporations can jack up their prices to however high they want and just blame "inflation" afterward. All Trump has to do is promise that things won't be as expensive when he is God-King again. It won't matter that he won't follow through on this promise, his followers will come up with a trillion excuses as to why prices keep rising (damn those communists!!!)

This is the issue that will sink the Biden administration as they are talking about student loans, minority rights, yadda yadda yadda.

That should have helped the Republicans more in the midterm (especially since the more fiscal Democrats can vote Republicans without feeling as guilty as in presidential election, which is what happened in 2010) but the Democrats message that voting for the other party is a threat to democracy worked enough to cancel it out.

Nikki Haley is the only one doing well at these debates. Chris Christie meanwhile is such a tease. He acts like he is going to bring it to Trump, but doesn’t. Like Trump is such an easy candidate to just hammer right now, but no one has charisma or the guts. The dude was just convicted of fraud and the proceeded to go to a non-union factory in Michigan and pretend to rally with union workers. I mean, you can’t write this stuff…