Ben Domenech

In the wake of his brush with death in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump appears to be indicating that he is going to pursue a new approach to his campaign, outlined in a convention speech based on unity. This is a mistake. In an interview on his Boeing 757 plane, the assassination attempt fresh in his mind, Trump spoke with Byron York about his intentions for his Milwaukee remarks and how they’ve changed: It was obvious that Trump was still processing what had happened. Who wouldn’t be? It is something that will stay with him for the rest of his life. At the moment, he is grappling with the feeling that something very big has changed in his life and in the presidential race. When I asked him, “Does this change your campaign?” he immediately answered, “Yes.

It was a long, hot, steamy day in Butler, Pennsylvania when someone crawled onto a rooftop that had baked in the sun, set up a rifle and tried to shoot Donald Trump in the head. We don't at this juncture know anything about that person for certain except that he is male, and that his presence on that rooftop surprised the countersniper teams designated with protecting the former president, giving him the split seconds needed to fire off a number of shots, killing at least one rally attendee and injuring others. But the effect this sniper had is immense.

The mood among Washington Democrats is grim. Understanding that Joe Biden is headed toward defeat, they’ve also come to the conclusion that there’s nothing they can do about it — that unless Biden willingly steps aside, their side is doomed to failure. Three senators — including Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown, fighting to hold on in competitive elections this fall — said this out loud to their colleagues behind closed doors. The third, Michael Bennet of Colorado, was willing to say it publicly on CNN, even invoking the prospect of a “landslide” that results in Republicans winning the Senate and the House. Even Nancy Pelosi seemed skeptical of Biden’s prospects on Morning Joe, where she said, “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run.

For years now Republicans have voiced some version of the same opinion: "If only Donald Trump could get out of his own way..." things would be going much better for them. In the DC swampland, this usually was followed with some comment about his tweets and personal feuds. Outside, if it came from older voters, it was usually expressed as "I wish he'd just put down the phone sometimes." And if it came from middle-aged supporters, it was more than once expressed to me that Trump just needs to "stop tripping on his own dick."  The attitude is ubiquitous among some portions of the president's base: they just think he'd be better off if he could focus and not give Democrats so much material.

In the aftermath of the worst debate performance by an incumbent president in American history, the media is already scrambling for a storyline about what went wrong with their chosen candidate. Their frame of argument goes like this: we love Joe Biden, he’s the best, his presidency is an enormous success, but really, someone at the White House should have told us that he was this ludicrously old. How were we to know? Shame on them. This narrative is a blatant lie. The truth is that if the media conglomerates had been honest with the voters a year ago, they would not be in this predicament today, nor would the country be saddled with an mentally addled, barely ambulatory octogenarian as the candidate of the major party media members overwhelmingly support.

Jamaal Bowman’s ignominious defeat in the Democratic primary in New York last night marked the first incumbent to go down this cycle — an indication that voters have, in 2024, had enough of a certain type of crazy. It is impossible to list the amount of crazy Bowman has injected into American politics in his brief stint on Capitol Hill, but perhaps more impossible is the list created by the next Squad member on the target list: Missouri’s Cori Bush, who literally did an interview where she talked about her ability to heal cancer with her hands. If the Squad were interested in being an enduring faction instead of a brief, loud, social-media driven phenomenon, they certainly have picked the wrong people for the job.

It's been twelve years since the infamous moment when CNN's Candy Crowley interjected herself into the presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, providing a live "fact check" which was, in reality, her factually inaccurate opinion.  The moment was embarrassing enough that debate commission co-chair Frank Fahrenkopf would later describe their selection of Crowley as a moderator as a "mistake"; she was widely criticized for both inserting herself too much into the debate and letting it get out of hand.

The upcoming June 27 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be the first of its kind — a former president debating a current president, with a massive list of subjects to animate the discourse. But there is one topic in particular that moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash must bring up if this debate is to have any respectability from the voters: they must confront Joe Biden about his lies in the 2020 debates. These lies have been acknowledged publicly by Tapper at least, and by Bash to a lesser degree.

In the same building where he once descended down a golden elevator and embarked on a campaign that would forever change American politics, this morning Donald Trump lumbered up to the mic in New York City to launch napalm at all his enemies, particularly Judge Juan Merchan, Alvin Bragg and Michael Cohen — who he didn't mention by name, other than calling him a "sleazebag" and saying that he didn't qualify as a "fixer." The idea of a gag order for this man is so ridiculous, I love that they even tried to do it. It was classic Trump: meandering, angry, darkly comic, rhetorical guns blasting away at everyone around him, golden hair blown out and wearing a bright crimson tie as wide as his head.