Francis X. Suarez

Friday

Cockburn

President Trump won’t attend his son’s destination wedding

Cockburn isn’t the only one heading to the Bahamas this weekend. So is Donald Trump Jr. – to get married to Bettina Anderson in a private ceremony of around 50 people. It will be his second marriage and Anderson’s first. It sounds like Don Jr.’s father might be sitting this one out. “He’d like me to go,” President Trump told reporters Thursday, “but it’s going to be a small little private affair, and I’m going to try and make it… I’m in the midst – I said, ‘You know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.’” “He’s a person I’ve known for a long time,” he added. Political careers and family life often conflict but Cockburn won’t accuse Trump of being an absentee father just yet.

trump

Thursday

Ben Domenech

The incredible shrinking field

Welcome to Thunderdome, where you should never let a crisis go to waste, and Donald Trump isn’t wasting any time bashing Ron DeSantis even in the midst of hurricane recovery efforts, hoping to stomp on what could be an opportunity to show off his good governance chops. The White House, meanwhile, is struggling not just with frustration over their delayed response to the Maui disaster and the president’s insistence on repeatedly telling his exaggerated anecdotes about a house fire, but also the anniversary of another, different kind of disaster: the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which brought Gold Star families to bear against the administration this week. The guys discuss all this and more on the latest Thunderdome podcast — listen and subscribe here today!

shrinking field

Tuesday

Matt McDonald

Eight GOP presidential candidates who aren’t Trump to debate in Milwaukee

The Republican National Committee confirmed late Monday night the presidential candidates who would face each other in Wednesday night’s debate. They are: North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, former vice president Mike Pence, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina senator Tim Scott. Former president Donald Trump, who leads every poll comfortably, will not be in attendance. Trump had hoped to send surrogates to vouch on his behalf in the spin room — which, in an apparent tribute to Watergate, will be in the players' parking garage of the Fiserv Forum.

milwaukee debate who qualified

Thursday

Michael Bachmann

Which candidates are set to qualify for the first Republican debate?

High-profile candidates are on track to meet the Republican National Committee’s new debate requirements for the first showdown on August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The rules require that a candidate reach 1 percent support in three national polls (or two national polls and one early-primary state poll) conducted from July 1 onwards and have 40,000 individual donors, with at least 200 donors in twenty different states. Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, who have all polled consistently over 1 percent in the past two polls, will likely qualify for the debate when the third is released. All but Pence have stated they have met the 40,000 donor threshold, according to Politico.

debate

Thursday

Ben Domenech

Republicans can’t quit Donny

Welcome to Thunderdome! For the latest edition of our podcast, head over here — this week, we talked about steel manning the legal woes of Trump and Biden, DeSantis’s plateau, Christie’s surge, the Kamala problem, what’s a Uighur and, in a new tradition, named our King of the Week. Listen here and subscribe today!  Republicans can’t quit Donny Try as they might, and much as many of them want to, Republicans just can’t quit Trump. Everything about this moment suggests that nominating a candidate in 2024 who has just a modicum of likability would be a genius play. Joe Biden’s job approval hovers around 40 percent, and only a quarter of voters are positive about the direction of the country.

donny republicans

Wednesday

Oliver Wiseman

Biden’s family misfortune

For years, it seemed as though nothing could stick when it came to the impact of Hunter Biden’s escapades on his father’s presidency. The White House could stick to its don’t-even-go-there denials. The press seemed determined not to do its job. The alleged crimes and shady business practices of the president’s son were not to be brought up in polite company.  Slowly, but perceptibly, that is changing. The sheer weight of evidence that has continued stacking up, the plea deal and the serious claims made by the IRS whistleblower this month have combined to push the Hunter Biden story into the foreground. The hand-wafting dismissals by Democrats of anyone who took the Hunter story seriously were always unpersuasive and dishonest. But that is more obvious now.