The end of Donald Trump
I’ve been asked if I think Donald Trump will be granted bail during today’s criminal arraignment proceeding in federal court. My answer is that I don’t know if he’ll get bail, and I don’t really care, because in the end I don’t think it will matter all that much. What do I mean by that?
For starters, there are people who have been charged with similar Espionage Act crimes who have in fact been granted bail. So if Trump is given bail, it won’t be a matter of special treatment. It’ll just be a matter of the personal philosophy of the judge handling the bail hearing (and remember, that’ll be a magistrate judge, not Aileen Cannon). Some judges jump straight to house arrest on these kinds of charges. Other judges decide to initially give defendants some rope by letting them out on bail, and seeing if they do anything to warrant revoking it.
We don’t know what this magistrate judge will do. We also don’t yet know whether Jack Smith and his team will ask for house arrest. Remember, if you’ve figured out that there’s no chance of getting something out of a judge at a particular point in time, there’s not always a point in asking for that thing. Why pointlessly annoy the judge? There are also prosecutors who seemingly want certain defendants to initially be out on bail, so they can catch them doing things like contact witnesses, so they can bring even more charges against the defendant.
But this is Jack Smith’s show, and we’ll see what his strategy is when it comes to this. Even if Trump is allowed out on bail, it’ll certainly come with restrictions. These aren’t the low level felonies in state court that Trump faced in Manhattan. These are federal crimes under the Espionage Act. For reference, George Santos – whose federal crimes were all financial – has had his travel limited strictly to New York and Washington DC. Trump likely isn’t getting released restriction-free either.
But again, who cares? Even if Trump is placed under house arrest today, it’s not going to instantly be the end of his 2024 “campaign.” Think about just how few rallies and events he’s holding as it is. In spite of all the hype, it’s still very early. The 2024 election cycle isn’t even underway yet. So even if Trump were put under house arrest today, his “campaign” wouldn’t look much different than it does now. He already spends most days sitting around the house and fuming.
That’s why I don’t care that much whether he gets out on bail or not right now. If anything, he benefited somewhat these previous two years when he was lying low in seclusion and letting the media (on both sides) do his 2024 hype for him. Now that Trump is out there running his mouth more often, he’s just letting the general public see how far gone he is. So if he gets released on bail and resumes running his mouth, that’s fine. His mouth is certainly not helping him, and it’s probably hurting. And how long will it be before Trump – an increasingly senile creature of habit who will forget that he’s under surveillance and can’t help himself anyway – gets caught trying to tamper with a witness and gets his bail revoked?
In any case, I’ve said all along that while Donald Trump won’t survive the 2024 election cycle, he won’t fall through a trap door – at least not yet. Each new arrest, arraignment, bail hearing, and devastatingly ugly indictment text will make it incrementally more clear that Trump isn’t viable. And while his base might want to stay with him, any reasonable math suggests that his core base is more than about one-third of the Republican primary voting base. His numbers, even within Republican primary polling, will drop. Not off a cliff. And not tomorrow. But his viability will continue to get chipped away at until everyone realizes he’s not really in the game anymore.
Maybe that’ll happen sooner rather than later. Or maybe it’ll take Trump being convicted and sentenced to prison before Republican primary voters figure out that, hey wait a minute, this guy really isn’t going to be a part of this election, so let’s not forfeit the whole thing by making him the nominee. And if Republican primary voters really are stupid enough to nominate a guy who’s sitting in federal prison, then that’s fine, we’ll be happy to celebrate President Biden’s reelection in a landslide.
But here’s what really stands out right now, and it’s why I’ve titled this article “The end of Donald Trump.” Remember how all the talking heads insisted that all these also-rans like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott were only entering the 2024 race to try to position themselves as Trump’s running mate? Yesterday, Haley and Scott both slammed Trump and as good as said he’s guilty. That’s not something they’ll be able to walk back, and they know it. By saying this, they’re closing the door to ever being on Trump’s ticket. And that’s because they’ve concluded that there will be no Trump ticket.
Republicans like Haley and Scott think Trump is 100% toast. They didn’t before, back when he was being indicted in Manhattan and they were publicly defending him over it. But Trump’s only hope was if the DOJ somehow decided to let him off the hook, which was never going to happen. Now that the DOJ has indeed indicted him, the other Republican candidates know Trump is a goner – and they’re already aggressively positioning themselves accordingly.
Again, let’s remember what today’s date is. This is June 13th of 2023. We’re still eight months away from a single vote even being cast in the 2024 Republican presidential primary race, and yet numerous Republican candidates are already making moves that make clear they think there’s a 100% chance the “frontrunner” Trump won’t survive. It’s that obvious that Trump is a goner. Today’s arrest and arraignment are just another big step in the direction of flushing Trump down the drain.
