Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to Ukraine drew less coverage than DeSantis’ puppies.
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley became the first 2024 candidate to campaign at the southern border, but her Fox News interview was interspersed with footage of Trump’s plane preparing to leave Florida for his court date in New York.
After the Fox News anchor interrupted Haley to note that Trump had raised a “staggering” $5 million in the 48 hours since his indictment, an exasperated Haley responded that, there she was, “sitting here in Del Rio, Texas” to bring attention to illegal immigration at the border, and “no one is talking about it.”
“That’s the issue,” Haley said emphatically, adding that Trump’s indictment was just a heap of “unnecessary” political drama.
Terry Sullivan, who ran Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign, found the entire GOP dynamic uncomfortably familiar.
“This is deja vu all over again,” Sullivan said. “Trump dominates media coverage, making it impossible for his competitors to get any coverage or forward traction.”
Remember all the ink that has been devoted to Republicans plotting to take out Trump? Talk is once again proving to be very cheap, a reality many GOP operatives find absolutely vexing.
“What’s frustrating to me is we didn’t learn a damn thing from 2015 and 2016 when it comes to just giving him absolute, roadblock media coverage,” explained David Kochel, who’s worked on six Republican presidential campaigns. “I get it, it’s a big story. But this was getting covered like … the opening of the war in Iraq or the O.J. chase. You couldn’t escape it.”
In actuality, Trump’s predicament is akin to the first days of the Iraq War or the O.J. Simpson trial, in the sense that a twice-impeached standard-bearer and presidential frontrunner of a major political party getting criminally charged is indeed a historic first.
If only Republicans could have done something to take Trump out of the running, they might be having a relatively normal primary process. But that would have required the GOP to behave like a relatively normal party, lining up the votes to convict Trump for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and then cutting him loose.
And there’s nothing normal about today’s Republican Party.
RELATED STORIES:
Nearly two-thirds of Americans think Trump acted illegally—boosting him in GOP primary
Post-indictment, Trump is consolidating the GOP vote. But will it last?
Republicans are colluding to stop Trump in 2024. Now all they need is a plan
