Oliver Wiseman

Before we get to the main item, a quick bit of housekeeping. Today’s DC Diary will be my last. I’m leaving The Spectator, but am happy to report that the Diary will live on after my departure. It’s been an honor and a pleasure to try and make sense of the often confusing, sometimes maddening news out of Washington over the last few years. I leave you in the more than capable hands of my talented Spectator colleagues.  For a brief time on Wednesday night, America was offered a glimpse of a Republican Party not dominated by Donald Trump. Candidates on the debate stage swapped views on important issues. From Ukraine to abortion, the conversation was substantive, occasionally fiery and, I imagine, illuminating for an undecided primary voter who tuned in.

What, if anything, is at stake in tonight’s Republican primary debate?  The front-runner is skipping the event, instead providing voters with a pre-taped interview he did with Tucker Carlson, before heading to Fulton County, Georgia, tomorrow to turn himself in. As for the eight candidates who will be on the stage — and I don’t want to sound uncharitable here — none has shown any hint of being capable of making a dent in the former president’s commanding poll lead. Underscoring the extent to which this primary is proving to be a rerun of the Trump show, Fox News will reportedly be playing clips of the former president as part of the debate.

Donald Trump has reportedly decided that he won’t be attending the first Republican debate next Wednesday and will counter-program by sitting down for an interview with Tucker Carlson. (The choice is a double middle-finger: one from Trump to the RNC, another from Carlson to his former network.) In the end, the question of whether Trump would show up or not became a fairly low-stakes question. A candidate with a lead as large as his just doesn’t need to sweat decisions like this all that much. Talk of Trump being seen as running scared if he doesn’t show up in Milwaukee next week doesn’t have the same bite to it when he is forty points clear of the field.

Pity the voters of Georgia. From Stacey Abrams’s theatrics and red-on-red civil war to Donald Trump’s vote-stealing schemes and seemingly endless runoff races upon which, they are told, the future of the Republic depends, Peach State residents have found themselves close to the eye of the political storm of late.  The newest drama with which they must reckon is, of course, the RICO case brought against Donald Trump and eighteen of his allies over their efforts to overturn the election in the state in 2020. (For more on that indictment, read former US attorney Rachel Paulose’s piece for our site.) If any state’s voters have good reason to feel fatigued by the never-ending Trump psychodrama, it’s Georgia’s.

It feels a bit like Groundhog Day in Washington at the moment. Returning after a week’s vacation, I plugged back in this morning to discover that Donald Trump is bracing for another indictment, this time for his post-election antics in Georgia; that none of his Republican rivals show any sign of making a dent in his primary lead; that Hunter Biden’s misdeeds continue to dog the president; and that Team Biden is gearing up for yet another week trying to win America over on “Bidenomics.”The excuse for Biden’s latest bit of economic salesmanship is the one-year anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act. This means we will be treated to tired catchphrases that refuse to catch on, such as “grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down.

There has been no shortage of reminders of the gerontocracy in which we live lately. Last week brought two in the Senate.  One was Mitch McConnell’s worrying freeze-up at a press conference when he had to be helped away from reporters. The second came courtesy of Dianne Feinstein, who had to be prompted several times when asked to cast her vote on the Defense Appropriations Bill. “Say aye,” Senator Patty Murray of Washington told her ninety-year-old colleague from California. There are presumably other examples courtesy of the octogenarian commander-in-chief, but they are so frequent these days that it can be hard to keep track.  Feinstein’s age-related shortcomings have made news again.

Donald Trump has now been indicted enough times for there to be a sense of routine around the news of a fresh batch of charges. The former president warns that an indictment is coming. Then it arrives, it’s unsealed, and he’s arraigned. Trump’s Republican primary rivals respond, their choice of words assessed for signs of obsequiousness and defiance (the former are usually easier to find than the latter). The jurisdiction and likely make-up of the jury is debated. As are the prejudices of the judge, when the name becomes known.  And so yesterday when Trump was indicted for the third time this year, in relation to January 6, there was a familiar, inevitable, almost unremarkable feel to what is, by any reasonable measure, a grave moment for the country.

Is Donald Trump unbeatable? That has been the big question hanging over the Republican presidential primary ever since the former president announced his candidacy last November. And, even before the first debate has taken place, it is a question to which “yes” looks like an increasingly plausible answer.  Since the early campaign got underway in earnest, the contest for the Republican nomination has been remarkably stable. Trump has held a commanding lead, Ron DeSantis has lagged behind him in a clear but distant second, failing to breakthrough as many thought he might after declaring his candidacy. Meanwhile, no one else has registered enough of a polling surge to announce themselves as a serious alternative.

Former British prime minister Tony Blair is the quintessential Davos man. In the sixteen years since he left office, he has criss-crossed the globe, giving speeches and advising sometimes unsavory clients. And yet this week he has delivered a dissenting comment on the issue that his fellow conference-hoppers spend a lot of time worrying about. Blair has caused a bit of ruckus in the UK this week thanks to an interview with center-left magazine the New Statesman in which the former Labour Party leader questions the wisdom of unilateral action on climate change.

Most observers (myself included) expected Hunter Biden’s appearance in a Delaware court today to be a fairly routine affair. The president’s son would show up, plead guilty and get off with a slap on the wrist for tax and gun offenses that deserve far harsher punishment. Instead, a chaotic day ended with the plea deal falling apart, a judge issuing an eyebrow-raising opinion on the terms offered to Hunter, and a not guilty plea from the president’s son.

Hunter Biden will appear at a Wilmington court on Wednesday to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay taxes. These charges are the result of the prolonged investigation that has been the subject of serious claims of political interference from two IRS whistleblowers. Along with a pretrial agreement relating to a felony gun charge, the misdemeanors make up what many in Washington see to be a sweetheart deal for the president’s son.  Assuming Hunter’s lawyer can concentrate between bong rips, and Hunter himself manages to tear himself away from Nobu Malibu and make it to court on time, it should be a fairly routine appearance.

One of the few notable things about the low-key launch of Joe Biden’s reelection bid earlier this year was the prominence of his unpopular deputy. Kamala Harris featured heavily in the video in which he announced his run.  At the time, White House insiders acknowledged sotto voce that Biden’s age meant his vice president would have to take on a bigger role than is normal for running mates. An octogenarian candidate might not be able to handle the punishing campaign trail schedule, and voters would need to be comfortable that the woman only a heartbeat away from the presidency was up to the job.  For the White House, acknowledging the need for a bigger role for Harris meant addressing her unpopularity: Joe needed a Kamala relaunch.

The centrist group No Labels held a coming out party for itself in New Hampshire this week. In an event at St. Anselm College — a regular stop for presidential hopefuls — West Virginia senator Joe Manchin and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman talked up the prospects of a third-party run and the market for a ticket that appeals to the exasperated and underserved middle ground of American politics.  Meanwhile, No Labels is getting more specific about what its approach to 2024 will be. Until this week, the group had been noncommittal about exactly which Democratic and Republican candidates it would challenge, and when it would make a call on entering the race.

Have you had a bad week? Well, take some consolation from the fact that it probably wasn’t as bad as Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan’s. On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked Khan’s attempt to scupper Microsoft’s $75 billion takeover of gaming company Activision. The case is the latest in a series of high-profile defeats for the progressive wunderkind and face of so-called hipster antitrust. On Thursday morning, Elon Musk’s Twitter asked a judge to override an FTC order relating to its data practices and accused Khan’s agency of misconduct and bias towards it. Later that day, Khan appeared in front of the House Oversight Committee, where she received a no-holds-barred grilling from Republican chair Jim Jordan.

Things are looking up. Today began with some very good economic news in Washington: Labor Department data shows inflation falling to a two-year low. The consumer price index rose 3 percent in the twelve months to June. That is a steep fall from the 9.1 percent price rise in the twelve months to June 2022, and perhaps the clearest sign yet that the US is on course to tame inflation while avoiding a recession — the soft landing that Joe Biden, Jay Powell and every other policymaker in Washington has been praying for.   Core consumer prices increased by 0.2 percent in June, the smallest single-month increase since August 2021 and an indicator that the pressure on prices is easing.

Miami mayor and presidential contender Francis Suarez ran a 5k last week. Vivek Ramaswamy, another 2024 hopeful, likes to play tennis. RFK Jr. recently posted a video of himself doing shirtless chest presses. The eagle-eyed folks at Politico have noticed these facts, connected a few dots and decided that the presidential race has descended into a “testosterone primary.” Politico is following in the footsteps of MSNBC, who last year suggested working out was “far right.” “Brawn and bravado are in demand, particularly among a GOP base conditioned by a steady dose of both in the Trump era. Thirst traps are a new wedge issue,” reports Adam Wren.

Last Friday, a day after the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action, I noted the gap between the Democratic Party’s leaders and its voters on race-based admissions. Polls find a majority of Democrats opposed to using race as a factor in admissions. The party’s elite, however, is almost universally in favor of affirmative action — as hysterical reactions from the president and others made clear.  But that was last week. Now that the dust has settled, and everyone has had a chance to cool down over July 4, have the Democrats gained some Independence-Day perspective on the end of race-based decisions? Not really.

Joe Biden’s best days may be behind him, but the president’s talent for feigning moral outrage is undiminished. That much was clear from the president’s reaction to Supreme Court decisions in the last few days, in particular his remarks in response to the court’s rulings on affirmative action and his administration’s student debt forgiveness program.  This week has served as a reminder that Biden is a president who knows his survival depends on drawing the most demagogic caricature of his opponents he can get away with.

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.

The president is hitting the road this week to kickstart a big push to sell his economic track record. The nation, barely recovered from the excitement of the first “Investing in America” tour earlier this year, will be treated to another few weeks of cabinet members in hardhats talking about green jobs. A memo from White House advisors Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon warns that Biden, cabinet members and other administrators “will continue fanning out across the country to take the case for Bidenomics and the president’s Investing in America agenda directly to the American people.” (Take shelter!) On Wednesday Biden will give what the White House is billing as a “major speech” touting his economic policies.