Here’s What Trump Will Do Next
After the shocking and contemptible storming of the Capitol incited by the president of the United States, two things are still certain. First, 11 days from nowon Wednesday, Jan. 20Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in Joe Biden as our 46th president.
Donald Trump says he wont attend the inauguration, , but its also certain on that same dayand this is the second pointhe will become ex-President Trump.
And then what will Trump do?
It says a great deal about the man and our times that this question looms as large as asking what President Joe Biden will do. Can you imagine?
Before this week I would have said that Trump running for president in 2024 was somewhere between plausible and likely, with him even having a chance of winning. But after the Jan. 6th Beer Belly Putsch, and the resulting implosion of Trump’s world , that is much less likely. Still, you never ever know when it comes to politics, and regardless Trump, more tarnished than ever and probably hounded by litigation, will remain a giant figure in our lives.
Talk about uncharted territory.
My position with Trump is that all precedents have no meaning with him, says David Pietrusza, historian and author of numerous books on presidential elections and administrations. You can throw the history books out the window and can throw the historians like me out the window.
Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: .
Opinion: This Is How Donald Trump Becomes President Again
Ever since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, Ive been among those who believed he would never run for president again. Hed keep the option open for as long as possible to get attention and keep other Republicans genuflecting to him, but he wouldnt go through with it. It would just be too much trouble at his age , and the idea of losing yet again would be too frightening.
But the events of the last few months have increased the likelihood that Trump could survey the landscape and decide that he could waltz right back into the White House if he wanted.
Not because hed get more Americans to vote for him barring some kind of unforeseen catastrophe, its difficult to see that happening. But because his party has so aggressively worked to twist and corrupt the U.S. electoral system, he could clearly lose both the popular and electoral votes and still become president again.
Its too early to say how likely this is, but heres how it could go down.
Step one: Trump decides to run, and obliterates the primary field.
While many Republicans are considering a presidential bid, some of whom are savvy operators, there isnt one who looks remotely like they could defeat Trump in a presidential primary.
Step two: Republican voter suppression measures have an impact.
Step three: GOP state legislatures step in.
Step four: Republicans in the House of Representatives take control.
Read more:
Relax A Trump Comeback In 2024 Is Not Going To Happen
Weve seen this presidents type before. They always fade away.
12/10/2020 04:30 AM EST
-
Link Copied
Altitude is a column by POLITICO founding editor John Harris, offering weekly perspective on politics in a moment of radical disruption.
Donald Trump lost the presidency, but his opponents so far have not achieved the victory they want most: A fatal puncturing of the Trump movement, a repudiation so complete that it severs his astonishing grip on supporters and leaves him with no choice but to slink offstage and into the blurry past.
For now, Trump dominates conversations about both present and future. His outlandish claims that he won the election except for comprehensive fraud have helped raise more than $200 million since Election Day. Many of his partisans share his dream of recapturing the presidency in 2024. For those who despise him, to paraphrase a famous Democratic speech, it seems clear the work goes on, the cause endures, the fear still lives, and the nightmare shall never die.
Except it will die most likely with more speed and force than looks possible today.
There are three primary reasons to be deeply skeptical that Trumps moment of dominating his party and public consciousness will continue long after Jan. 20.
This brings the mind back to the figure who is the most vivid antecedent of Trump: Joe McCarthy.
Sen. Joe McCarthy gestures as he indicates he is not impressed with an answer by Army Secretary Robert Stevens during a hearing May 3, 1954. | AP Photo
Also Check: Will Trump Get Reelected In 2020
What He Says Now
Last Saturday, speaking at his first major campaign rally since the coronavirus pandemic emerged, Trump actually outlined a second-term agenda in broad terms. But as he did so, he couldn’t help but interject with asides and defenses and attacks.
A vote for Republicans is a vote for better schools, better jobs, safer families and stronger communities for all Americans, he said, introducing the section of his prepared speech that was meant to make the case for another four years. There is no limit to what we can together achieve with four more years.”
With your help, we will lift millions of our citizens from welfare to work, dependence to independence, and poverty to prosperity, he continued.
Ill interject here to note that transcripts of Trumps speeches dont convey the way in which he obviously reads the room and reacts to it. Most politicians understand that speeches are given in part to establish a record to which they can refer. Trump, though, cant stand to see the audience bored and cant introduce a thought without ensuring that its framed the way he wants. So after talking about lifting Americans to prosperity, he had to add that it was Chinas fault that things werent currently great.
Then on to other issues.
Another riff: The wall is beautiful and it was hard to build and theres something wrong with Democrats, etc.
A riff about the Islamic State.
A riff about the recent launch of a SpaceX rocket.
Chris Miller Now Says Talk Of A Full Withdrawal Was A Play To Convince A Taliban
President Donald Trumps top national security officials never intended to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, according to new statements by Chris Miller, Trumps last acting defense secretary.
Miller said the presidents public promise to finish withdrawing U.S. forces by May 1, as negotiated with the Taliban, was actually a play that masked the Trump administrations true intentions: to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to quit or accept a bitter power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, and to keep some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for counterrorism missions.
In a conversation this week with Defense One, Miller revealed that while serving as the top counterterrorism official on the National Security Council in 2019, he commissioned a wargame that determined that the United States could continue to conduct counterterrorism in Afghanistan with just 800 American military personnel on the ground. And by the end of 2020, when he was acting defense secretary, Miller asserted, many Trump administration officials expected that the United States would be able to broker a new shared government in Afghanistan composed primarily of Taliban officials. The new government would then permit U.S. forces to remain in country to support the Afghan military and fight terrorist elements.
Related articles
Pompeo offered his own recollections in a Monday appearance on Fox Business.
Don’t Miss: Is Trump Going To Win
What Hes Said In The Past
It’s not the case that Trump has never articulated plans for his second four years in office. He has at times thrown out random things that he insists he’ll get done.
In May, he promised that Republicans would replace Obamacare with great health care at a lesser price, and preexisting conditions will be included and you won’t have the individual mandate promises Trump has been making annually since before being elected. Last July, he told reporters that he would leave that for the beginning of my second term.”
He has repeatedly hinted at the need for a Republican president for things like future Supreme Court justices, hinting a few times that from 2021 to 2025 there might be a couple of more appointments to be made. More exotically, in April 2017 he made another second-term promise: Perhaps we could go to Mars.
At the Values Voter Summit last October, Trump made a vague appeal to the need for continuity, comparing his first-term efforts to a new plant.
You seed the plant, you put that plant in, but those roots have to gain, he said. That’s why we need the next four years. We have to have those roots, they have to grab on. That’s why we need them.”
Trump Sits In The Chair Of The Oval Office Not Because Of His Experience Or Strategy But Because Of An Accident In History
Two and a half years after these comments, I had the opportunity to read the latest book by one of my favorite authors, the journalist Bob Woorward, well-known among other things for being one of the journalists in the Watergate case. In that book entitled Fear, he narrates the follies of the most powerful man on earth, where his collaborators have to withdraw his documents so that he does not carry out actions with unpredictable consequences. For my part, stop counting when 23 collaborators were dismissed or resigned in just 20 months of administration. That does remain at his side one of the most macabre characters in the world economy. A character without a defined administrative charge who acts as a plenipotentiary presidential advisor, and the voice that is whispered to Trump of the highest conspiracies, Peter Navarro.
Polls carried out since the mid-term elections, and very contrary to what we usually hear in the press, do not predict that Trump will win the next elections, but quite the opposite, although it is true that until barely 60 days ago they were within the margin of error.
Erratic decisions and explosive statements on issues as sensitive as the pandemic, racism or police brutality may not have led to loss of votes, since it has a very stable base of loyal followers, but it has caused a large portion of voters who did not plan to vote to do so, and do it against him.
Read Also: Is Donald Trump A Republican
Biden Says He Started The Vaccination Program Despite Trump Rollout
Former President Donald Trump suggested without evidence Thursday night that thousands of Haitian migrants who are reported to be heading for the US-Mexico border are afflicted by AIDS.
We have hundreds of thousands of people flowing in from Haiti, Trump told Fox News Sean Hannity. Haiti has a tremendous AIDS problem. AIDS is a step beyond. AIDS is a real bad problem.
So hundreds of thousands of people are coming into our country that if you look at the stats, if you look at the numbers, if you look at just take a look at whats happening in Haiti, a tremendous problem with AIDS, the former president added. Many of those people will probably have AIDS and theyre coming into our country and we dont do anything about it. We let everybody come in. Sean, its like a death wish. Its like a death wish for our country.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates that 150,000 Haitians are living with the virus that causes AIDS. However, many of those who are reportedly heading for the US-Mexico border are believed to be coming from countries in South America, having left Haiti following the devastating earthquake in January 2010.
Trump also alleged that dozens of countries were emptying out their prisons into the United States, in an echo of some of his infamous anti-immigration rhetoric from the 2016 campaign.
Talk Of Trump 2024 Run Builds As Legal Pressure Intensifies
WASHINGTON Donald Trump was calling into yet another friendly radio show when he was asked, as he often is, whether hes planning a comeback bid for the White House. We need you, conservative commentator Dan Bongino told the former president.
Well, Ill tell you what, Trump responded. We are going to make you very happy, and were going to do whats right.
It was a noncommittal answer typical of a former president who spent decades toying with presidential runs. But multiple people who have spoken with Trump and his team in recent weeks say such remarks shouldnt be viewed as idle chatter. Instead, they sense a shift, with Trump increasingly acting and talking like he plans to mount a run as he embarks on a more public phase of his post-presidency, beginning with a speech on Saturday in North Carolina.
The interest in another run, at least for now, comes as Trump has been consumed by efforts to undo last years election, advancing baseless falsehoods that it was stolen and obsessing over recounts and audits that he is convinced could overturn the results, even though numerous recounts have validated his loss. Hes also facing the most serious legal threat of his career.
Trump has slammed the probe as purely political, and those around him insist he isnt concerned about potential legal exposure even as they suggest his political posture is evolving.
The energys still there, Whitehouse said. You cant replicate it.
You May Like: Why Does Trump Lie So Much
