◼ We’re not for the latest Bernie Sanders idea, but we can see how the idea of getting the same pay for less work would come naturally to a senator.
◼ On January 6, 2021, Mike Pence defied Donald Trump. This was critical. He now says he cannot endorse Trump for another term as president—not “in good conscience.” It is startling that, in a general election, a former vice president has declined to endorse the president alongside whom he served. Whatever one may think of the choices Pence made between 2016 and 2020, he has behaved with a bold independence in the years since. Last summer, when he was running for the GOP presidential nomination, Pence traveled to Ukraine, to express his solidarity with that people under siege—this despite the fact that he must have known it would do him no good with the GOP electorate. He continues to remind Republicans who do not wish to hear it that the national debt is rising dangerously—and that entitlement programs need reforming because of it. He is also standing firm on the right to life at a time when many Republicans are blaming that cause for the party’s political travails. On all these issues, he differs with Trump in a way that speaks well of him—and of a brand of conservatism that deserves renewal.
◼ Trump is in a bind. After posting a $91.6 million bond to stave off writer E. Jean Carroll’s enforcement of the $83.3 million defamation judgment against him while he appeals the jury’s verdict, he faces a Monday deadline to post a bond in the neighborhood of $500 million to prevent New York attorney general Letitia James from enforcing the $454 million judgment she won against him for civil fraud. Trump says numerous bonding companies have declined to underwrite such a bond; they want him to post cash or its equivalent (commercial paper), not real estate (the value of which is not as certain and stable). He doesn’t have it. He has asked an appellate court to accept a smaller bond; if it rebuffs him, James can begin collecting, which could involve seizing some of his New York properties. Trump may have a lifeline: The parent of his Truth Social platform could merge today with a shell public company. With Trump supporters bidding up the stock value, Trump’s 60 percent stake could be worth over $3 billion. While he could not sell his shares yet, he might be able to borrow against them—but the merger would have to happen first, an iffy proposition. And there are, of course, more court cases to come.
◼ At an Ohio rally before the state’s Republican primaries, Trump promised a “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win in November. That’s what the media went with, anyway. Discussing the auto industry and his plans to impose a 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles coming to the U.S. from Mexico, Trump warned that, if Joe Biden wins reelection, “it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country” and “that will be the least of it.” He added: “But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.” The context made clear that Trump was predicting dire economic consequences for a Biden second term. But that’s much less exciting to the media and to Democrats, whose chances of victory in November depend on elevating Trump’s threat profile. The Biden campaign immediately put out a statement condemning Trump’s remarks. Hawaii senator Brian Schatz urged headline writers: “Don’t outsmart yourself. Just do ‘Trump Promises Bloodbath If He Doesn’t Win Election.’” Most of them dutifully obeyed. That so many on the left insist on mischaracterizing Trump when his actual actions and statements—see below—provide plenty of grounds for criticism continues to amaze. If his critics aren’t careful, they may help him return to the White House.
◼ Trump has a new stock bit with which he opens his political rallies—one that he’s been honing for months and that has merited the attention of the press, now that he is the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee. With mawkish solemnity, the former president and his supporters open the show with demands for justice supposedly denied the January 6 rioters. Trump salutes the prisoners in absentia as a recorded rendition of them singing the national anthem plays. An announcer laments that the “January 6 hostages” have been “horribly and unfairly treated,” and Trump pledges to clear the good names of these “unbelievable patriots.” Republicans shouldn’t need to be reminded that most Americans, justifiably, do not like what happened on January 6, 2021. If their voting patterns and responses to pollsters are any indication, they’re eager to avoid a repeat of that traumatic episode. It’s not clear what the GOP gets out of these displays except the opportunity to soothe Trump’s wounded ego. It is, however, easier to see what Republicans risk losing if the next election becomes an up-or-down referendum on the Capitol riot.
◼ Bernie Moreno has won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Ohio and will take on incumbent Sherrod Brown in November. The MAGA takeover of the once-staid Ohio GOP continues. In 2022, Moreno bowed out of the Senate primary to replace Rob Portman, allowing J. D. Vance (whom Trump eventually endorsed) to consolidate enough of the MAGA vote to win the primary. This time Moreno also had Trump’s backing, while Matt Dolan (the third-place finisher in 2022 and the only candidate in that primary to distance himself from Trump) was backed by Governor Mike DeWine and Portman. Frank LaRose, the Ohio secretary of state, ran as the most pro-life candidate, having led the failed opposition to the abortion referendum in 2023. Division between Dolan and LaRose didn’t matter, as Moreno won a majority of the primary vote. The car dealer, originally from Bogotá, Colombia, is an untested politician, and a late scandal over an unused online gay-dating profile for Moreno highlighted how unvetted he is. (Moreno’s campaign produced a former employee who said he had created the profile as a juvenile prank.) Democrats spent money late in the race to boost Moreno. Brown starts in a hole, given Ohio’s rightward shift in presidential-election cycles, but he has proven a tough nut to crack. If Moreno unravels, Republican primary voters will have nobody to blame but themselves. |