Donald trrump

Welcome to the first Thunderdome of 2024! I hope you had a great time off and congratulations to all of you chipper Ned Flanders types who’ve already filed your taxes. And also to those of you who are still in full recovery mode, having “Stayed up so late, attempted — quite unsuccessfully — to love all of our relatives, and in general, grossly overestimated our powers.” In any case, the year of 2023 is gone, and now our presidential election year is truly begun... and with it, a contest that is forcibly nonexistent on one side of the aisle, and on the other, one that has been drowned in its infancy. Why is that?

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have lost the support of Charlemagne Tha God, host of the culturally influential hip-hip radio show The Breakfast Club. Charlamagne, who endorsed the Democratic ticket in 2020, told Politico that he has no plans to repeat his mistake in 2024.  “I’ve learned my lesson from doing that. Once they got in the White House, [Harris] … kind of disappeared,” Charlamagne said. “‘Damn, you told us to vote for [them].’ Do you know how many people say that to me all the time?” Why does it matter? The Breakfast Club boasts 8 million listeners a month and Charlamagne is a well-respected voice in the black community, particularly among young, progressive listeners. Charlamagne’s defection feels like a long time coming.

What happens now that the Colorado Supreme Court has kicked Donald Trump off the primary ballot? The first thing, apparently, is similar lawsuits in other “blue” states. Those will continue despite the Wednesday decision by the Michigan Supreme Court that Trump’s name can remain.   Nearly all the commentary has been devoted to the legal reasons for these rulings and their political implications. But it is important to consider the effort to exclude Trump in a wider context, one that goes beyond his personality, polarizing candidacy and events of January 6.  That wider frame is a century-long progressive effort to reframe the way America is governed and to loosen the constitutional barriers to those changes.

I have important news for everyone: there is not going to be a second American Civil War. That may be hard for some people to grasp, as they seem almost fully committed to the idea that Civil War 2 is a pre-produced done deal just waiting for a wide release. But, as honorary American Gordon Ramsay might say, let me make one thing clear, young lady. The Second Civil War is a fear-based fantasy, mostly based on media-bubble abstractions. And our fantasy-making apparatus is in the midst of exploiting that fear. Exhibit one is Alex Garland’s upcoming A24 movie, subtly titled Civil War, starring Kirsten Dunst as a blue state-looking photojournalist who is chronicling the drama as President Ron Swanson sends fighter jets to attack what used to be his citizens. https://twitter.

Rudy Giuliani may sometimes carry himself like the Grinch, but the former New York City mayor loves Christmas enough to try his hand at ornament making. Even following a $148 million defamation judgment, Giuliani hasn’t given up the season's spirit. On Wednesday’s episode of his livestreamed program, America's Mayor Live, Giuliani seemed to have more on his mind than his financial woes. He shared a clip of his Christmas tree adorned with Nature’s Promise bottles, a fruit and vegetable supplement targeted at elderly conservatives. Still looking for that perfect stocking stuffer? Consider Nature's Promise: not only does it makes a great gift, every purchase helps Giuliani to "fight the traitors.

The Colorado Supreme Court issued a ruling Tuesday night that barred Donald Trump from appearing on the primary ballot in the 2024 election, a shock move that even NBC News described as a “political gift” to the former president. In a 4-3 decision, the court ruled that Trump engaged in an insurrection and is thus disqualified for running for office under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment contains a clause that states anyone who takes an oath “as an officer of the United States” and engages in “insurrection or rebellion” cannot hold civil or military office in the US. The section was written with the intention of barring Confederate leaders from returning to public office.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where on this week’s podcast we discussed why this seems to be the moment that Democrats publicly turned on Hunter Biden. There have already been statements from multiple Capitol Hill Democrats indicating that they believed Hunter’s activities had risen to the level of illegal and unethical activity — even from partisans like Jerry Nadler and Jamie Raskin. But the comment from Chris Murphy, viewed not just as a partisan but as a close White House ally on multiple fronts, that Hunter is “worthy of prosecution” in reaction to the latest California indictment has to be read as a message to Joe Biden: your re-election may well depend on what you do, or don’t do, about your son’s obvious crimes.

Former president Donald Trump’s support among voters in Iowa now tops 50 percent, according to a new poll from the Des Moines Register and NBC News. It’s the widest lead Trump has enjoyed in the first state to vote as part of the Republican primary process. Fifty-one percent of likely Republican caucus goers said Trump is their first choice, a gain of eight points since the last poll published in October. That puts him up more than thirty points over his nearest challenger.Aside from this being an obvious victory for Trump, who enjoys a likely insurmountable lead, the poll is also very bad news for former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.

Hunter Biden is in trouble... again. The question is how big?This week’s indictment from Special Counsel David Weiss is the latest in a seemingly never-ending saga of legal problems facing the “smartest guy” President Joe Biden knows. The charges, which center on tax evasion, include multiple felonies.  The fifty-six-page indictment, at times, reads like a smut novel. The first son is alleged to have tried to pass off the following as business expenses: hotel rooms he turned into crack dens, strippers and a $10,000 membership to a sex club that he claimed was a “golf club membership.”Weiss has been the target of ire from many on the right, but this week’s indictment received praise from some unlikely corners.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where last night’s debate in Tuscaloosa had some interesting aspects we’ll get to momentarily — but first, consider what this week looked like from the perspective of the front-runner for the nomination and, according to some, for the presidency. Donald Trump did a town hall with Sean Hannity — which got significantly less viewership than Ron DeSantis versus Gavin Newsom — where he managed to bolster Joe Biden’s central case against his candidacy. In Washington, Jack Smith dropped a new indication of the direction he plans to take with his case against Trump, including evidence of “encouragement of violence.

President Joe Biden said the quiet part out loud Tuesday, telling donors at a campaign event that he might not be running for re-election if former president Donald Trump were not in the 2024 race. It’s just bad optics for any presidential candidate, let alone a highly unpopular one, to admit that they aren’t super excited about what they’re doing. Senator Rand Paul had a similar moment on the 2016 trail when he was asked if he was still running for president. His response? “I don’t know; I wouldn’t be doing this dumbass live streaming if I weren’t.” Hilarious, but doesn’t exactly strike confidence in the voting base.

As former president Donald Trump seems to be cruising to the GOP nomination — a NewsNation poll has him ahead fifty points over his nearest rivals — his critics in the media and on the left are trotting out a familiar attack. Over the past two weeks, the headlines have been inescapable: Trump is a nasty authoritarian who wants to dismantle America’s democratic political system. This shouldn’t be all that surprising, since we heard similar cries ahead of his election 2016, namely over his support for a “Muslim ban” (a national security travel ban that included countries that are majority Muslim) and for mass deportations of illegal aliens.As the Iowa caucuses creep closer, the revamped, breathless accusations have increased in number and fervor.

The House of Representatives kicked out its only Jew-ish member today, sending George Santos into the pages of history as one of only a handful of House members to be booted from the body. Former congressman Santos had an eventful second wedding anniversary yesterday, as he held a feisty, fiery press conference to proclaim his innocence — but declined to ask any of his colleagues to defend him against the latest charges. This third attempt at expulsion proved to be the charm for Santos’s foes, who rode the wave of an almost-comedic House Ethics report that alleged Santos spent donor dollars on everything from OnlyFans subscriptions (which he somewhat denied) to Botox (which he basically confirmed).

Political media is buzzing with the news that former UN ambassador Nikki Haley will have the backing of the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity Action in the 2024 presidential primary. AFP Action says it will launch a multi-million dollar ad buy for Haley in early primary states and is prepared to deploy all of its grassroots resources to help Haley defeat former president Donald Trump.Who told them to light their money on fire? Haley is the only GOP primary candidate who has gained significant ground in the polls since launching her campaign, but the reality is that Trump still leads her by at least twenty points in New Hampshire and by about thirty in Iowa and Haley’s home state of South Carolina.