Donald Trump ‘Jokes’ Away Questions About Being a Dictator

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Happy Wednesday! It’s debate night in the United States. Sources close to Ramaswamy’s crusade told The Dispatch that the exhibit “is going to be on,” but declined to say more, so do what you want with it.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a former GOP chairman in the House of Representatives ousted by a far-right contingent from his own party in October, announced Wednesday that he will seek re-election to Congress next year and will resign his House seat in the end. of this year. ” Perhaps I never would have imagined the adventure when I first threw my hat,” McCarthy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in delivering his decision. “I leave knowing that I left everything on track, as always, with a smile on my face. “The announcement comes a day after Rep. Patrick McHenry, a key best friend of McCarthy’s who served as acting president after his ouster, said he, too, would seek reelection.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum announced Monday he is suspending his presidential campaign. “While this primary process has shaken my trust in many media organizations and political party institutions,” Burgum said in a press release, “it has only strengthened my trust in America.” Burgum, whose most notable moment as a candidate was his gaming the debate-qualification system by paying people to donate to his campaign, never got out of the low single digits in national or early-state polling.

Negotiations on a bill that would tie aid to Ukraine and Israel to border security reforms have reached an impasse among Senate negotiators: Democrats are unwilling to settle for immigration changes and Republicans say they wouldn’t introduce a bill without them. Even many of the top vocal Ukrainian hawks among Senate Republicans said they would oppose Biden’s $110 billing package in a procedural vote on the issue in the Senate today, accusing Democrats of refusing to negotiate with smart religion a compromise package. “They need dozens of dollar bills for our friends and allies overseas,” Sen. John Cornyn told the New York Times after a failed negotiation consultation on Tuesday, “but they’re not willing to do what’s mandatory to avoid potential conflict. “

An anonymous organization of more than 40 White House interns signed a letter this week criticizing the Biden leadership’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas and calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. “Our resolve to intern under his leadership is motivated by our shared values and deep confidence that, under his leadership, the United States has the prospect of being a country that stands for justice and peace,” wrote the interns.

Nikki Haley had her biggest fundraising success on Monday, raising more than $500,000 for her campaign from Wall Street backers at an event in New York hosted by former Facebook executive Campbell Brown and hedge fund Dan Senor.

Haley’s New Hampshire state director, Mak Kehoe, is parting ways with the crusade “for non-public reasons,” Haley’s crusade announced Tuesday. State Deputy Attorney General Tyler Clark will take the helm of next month’s primary in a state that is hugely Haley.

As Donald Trump’s crusading rhetoric toward his base becomes overtly authoritarian, much of the rest of the Republican Party has responded with a now-well-practiced approach: downplay it or carefully ignore it. You’d be hard-pressed to find a greater representation of this phenomenon than an exchange that took place last night at Trump’s town hall in Iowa with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

First, Hannity played a clip of Trump’s now-infamous line from a speech this spring: “In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

“I see what the media is doing now; I’ve created a hoax: They need to call you a dictator,” Hannity said. “I need to be very, very transparent about this: To be transparent, do you intend to, if re-elected president, abuse power, break the law, use the government to take advantage of the people?

This is what we in the news business call softball, and it’s evident that Hannity had planned it as such. Of course not, Sean, it’s still just fake news.

But Trump didn’t respond as Hannity obviously expected.

You mean like they’re using right now? So in the history of our country, what’s happened to us, again, has never happened before. Over nonsense, over nothing, made-up charges. I often say Al Capone, he was one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals. He was a mob boss the likes of which—Scarface, they call him. And he got indicted once, I got indicted four times. I wonder what my father and mother would say looking down.

A few minutes later, Hannity tried again. However, I would like to come back to this topic, because the media has focused on this and attacked it. Is he in no way promising America tonight that he will never abuse his strength in retaliation against anyone?

“Except on the first day,” Trump responded.

“Except for?. . . ” Hannity was perplexed. Except on the first day,” Trump repeated.

“Meaning?”

“What I need to close the border and I need to drill, drill, drill. “

“It’s Array. . . It’s revenge. “

“I love this guy,” Trump smiled at the crowd. He said, “You’re going to be a dictator, right?I said no, no, no. Except on the first day. We close the border and drill, drill, drill. After all, I’m a dictator. “.

“I find it like going back to the politics of when you were president,” Hannity concluded.

It hardly needs saying that Trump was, on a certain level, joking around with that last answer—gleefully leaning into liberal fears that he would act as a dictator in the same way he used to spitball about doing away with presidential term limits. But it still bears noticing: Trump, speaking to a friendly moderator in front of a friendly crowd, offered twice the opportunity to assure them he would remain within the bounds of the law if reelected, chose instead to first double down on his own grievances against his enmities and then to laugh the question off. Hannity, apparently figuring the latter was the best he was going to get, didn’t try to extract any more commitments from Trump about abusing power after that.

There are only 4 Republican presidential hopefuls left who will take the debate level tonight in Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie. As time runs out before next month’s Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, this may be one of the last most productive opportunities for the most sensible applicants to win. First contests.

But don’t expect them to take on the former president’s biggest obstacle: his major legal troubles.

David has spent the last few days taking the temperature of the most sensible crusade advisers and PAC super strategists for DeSantis and Haley. In an article published today on the site, he explains how any of the applicants still think direct attacks on Trump’s legal troubles would be more effective. Probably for “boomerang” to the one who launches the attack, to take down the leader:

“Campaigns are moving to behave rationally and it’s not in anyone’s interest right now to go down that road,” said a strategist advising a super PAC. A strategist advising one of the campaigns added: “Christie, of course, won’t get any traction. The former New Jersey governor has relentlessly attacked Trump for his myriad moral and legal scandals. But in New Hampshire, where Christie campaigned almost exclusively, he came in third with 11. 3 percent.

David also spoke with Matt Gorman, former spokesman for Sen. Tim Scott’s recently suspended presidential campaign, whose assessment was largely the same: “No votes are advancing in the Republican primary. All those pundits love to communicate about the option of facing Trump head-on. If it was so undeniable and if they were so smart, they would do it. It takes more strategy than crashing headfirst into a wall.

Check out the full piece here.

“He is, number one, from your standpoint, cognitively—you like to use that word, cognitively—he’s not good. But it’s not for me to say.”

—Donald Trump to Sean Hannity on President Joe Biden’s fitness, Dec. 5, 2023

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