1) 40% of Republicans are open to a primary candidate besides Trump.
2) This fall's chief DC topic will be impeachment; Trump will likely be impeached. Whether there'll be a Senate trial is unclear.
3) By December, the GOP field could be:
Kasich
Sanford
Trump
Walsh
Weld
NOTE/ I'm not saying Trump won't be the GOP nominee. I'm saying an impeached Trump in the midst of a Senate trial that airs his crimes is a *damaged* Trump. There may well be a number of Republicans who make the case that the GOP can't afford the risk of a post-impeachment Trump.
NOTE2/ Mitch McConnell refusing to hold a Senate trial after Trump is impeached by the House is, to be clear, *illegal*. Moreover, the moment impeachment occurs Chief Justice John Roberts is the judge in the case; the House might well be able to successfully petition for a trial.
NOTE3/ Right now 40% of Republicans are open to a new primary candidate. Imagine the optics if impeachment and a Senate trial push that over 50% due to anxiety over whether Trump can win. The moment a *majority* of Republicans are open to a new candidate, many things will change.
NOTE4/ A vulnerable, post-impeachment Trump could widen the GOP field even more than we expect, perhaps even forcing televised debates; at any such event, GOP voters would *finally* see how easy it'll be to demolish Trump over his disloyalty to the country and gross incompetence.
NOTE5/ I've no doubt that Trump would refuse to debate, as he's fundamentally a grotesque coward; *and* I've no doubt Ronna Romney McDaniel and the RNC would refuse to in *any* way make room for primary challengers, as the RNC is enabling a criminal and has been for 3+ years now.
NOTE6/ But there's a question about what CNN/MSNBC would do if they saw the following field of high-profile Republicans attempting to challenge Trump and wanting a televised debate (even one Trump wouldn't attend):
NOTE7/ All this is hypothetical. The names in the prior tweet have all publicly proven themselves to be cowards in the face of Trump's autocratic nightmare. The question is whether impeachment, a trial and cable's willingness to televise debates without Trump could change things.
NOTE8/ But here's another way to look at it: the more candidates who join the GOP primary, the more likely it is that new candidates join because it begins to seem like a real primary, with a chance that donors open their purses and that cable news gives coverage to challengers.
NOTE9/ Now add another wrinkle: increasing signs of a coming recession. I think we underestimate how vulnerable Trump may come to seem to many viable Republican presidential candidates in the 120 days to come. But it's media that determines whether this story ever really emerges.
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(🚨) EXCLUSIVE: This report is epic, crossing years, continents, and scandals some readers won’t have encountered before—from golf to crypto, intel to international law. Everything comes back to why the Iran War happened, and why it’ll likely restart.
1/ I’ve been thinking about what else I want to say on this subject since I first posted this report a few hours ago. The report is of course extremely long, detailed, and well-sourced, so there’s much that I could write that would simply be redundant.
2/ I do have thoughts I want to expand on, though.
Stunning how media turned passage of the Abominable Bill into a will they/won't they romcom with a July 4 deadline for Cinderella to kiss the prince, rather than a situation in which members of Congress say they're terrified they or their family will be killed if they cross Trump
The only journalistically responsible way to cover what's happening in DC is to report that the Dear Leader of a cult set an arbitrary deadline for his cult to dance for him on penalty of sinister punishments, and now we're watching a gruesome public whipping unfold in real time
The grotesque mummery playing out at the Capitol is not just joyless and borderline violent but without any suspense whatsoever, as in an authoritarian regime—which is what the GOP is—the outcome isn't in doubt, only whether 1-2 rebels choose to sacrifice themselves to the flames
Agents of Trump business and political partners MBS, MBZ and el-Sisi were secretly in the White House as Trump agreed to go to war with their enemy Iran?
How is this not the big news right now? How is this not bigger than every other story media is covering?
This is beyond journalistic malpractice.
We're talking about matters of war and peace—historic lies told by a POTUS to push America to war—and CNN is burying the lede that the attack was a byproduct of secret negotiations with those who support Trump financially and politically?
And should it not also be noted that the man representing Trump in these hours of secret negotiations inside the White House—assuming Trump wasn't there himself, which I suspect he was for part of the time—is a man (Witkoff) with financial ties to parties he was negotiating with?
(🚨) BREAKING: Exactly as happened in 2020 after Trump illegally assassinated the second-most-popular Iranian—and therefore as Trump could easily have predicted, and as media should already have forecast for Americans—Iran has just launched missiles at multiple US military bases.
CNN:
It is certainly possible that, as in 2020, this response is gestural rather than serious. But it might not be, and Trump might deliberately pretend that it is not, and either way there could still be some Americans injured, so who knows what is going to happen now.
2018: Gen. Kurilla—“Israel’s favorite general”—is made CENTCOM Chief of Staff
2018: CENTCOM urges Trump to add Israel to CENTCOM’s Area of Responsibility
2021: 4 days before leaving office, Trump adds Israel to CENTCOM AOR
2021: Process making Kurilla CENTCOM commander begins
(🚨) MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Trump Tells America He Planned His Iran Policy—Including Unprovoked Major Military Strikes—“A Long Time Ago” and As a “Team” With Israeli War Criminal Netanyahu, Confirming the Entirety of the Proof Trilogy and Proof Project in Stunning Public Confession
(PS) Am watching CNN and there is no acknowledgment whatsoever that Trump said this. It was far and away the only significant thing he said in his two-minute, somewhat mumbling declaration.
(PS2) Jake Tapper is now on-air telling America that this war is not inconsistent with Trump’s pledge of peace.
He then indicated that he trusts Israeli intelligence over American intelligence.