Donald Trump admits he’s being criminally indicted

Even as prosecutors in multiple jurisdictions have made steady and documented progress toward criminally indicting Donald Trump, we’ve heard this steady drumbeat from most of the media and pundit class that Trump would never end up indicted no matter what. But now that Fulton County and Manhattan each appear to be days away from indicting Trump, even he’s admitting in nearly exact words that it’s happening.

Trump is now telling a far right propaganda outlet that even if he’s criminally indicted in one or more jurisdictions, he’ll stay in the 2024 race. In other words, he’s admitting that he’s getting indicted. He’s just trying to spin it as positively for himself as he can.

We all knew that Trump wouldn’t just drop out of the 2024 race the minute he’s indicted. He’s only even “running” as a way of raising money to pay for his legal defense, and as an attempt at changing the narrative away from the obviousness of his downfall.

But the notion that Trump can get arrested, go through bail hearings, deal with travel restrictions, and have a trial date publicly set for multiple felony counts – and this somehow won’t impact primary voters’ willingness to nominate a guy who’s likely to be in prison during the general election – is laughably absurd.

Of course Trump’s 2024 already barely-there campaign is going to take a major hit from Trump’s indictment. It’s going to cause the wheels of that essentially nonexistent campaign to start coming off. Every other Republican 2024 candidate will begin emphasizing the danger of nominating someone who will likely be in prison during the general election. Trump’s already-fragile 2024 primary numbers will falter. His donations will falter. His ability to focus on his campaign and take it seriously, which he can barely seem to do now, will falter.

Yet Trump knows that all he has to do is admit he’s being indicted, and then offer up this delusional tale of how his imaginary 2024 campaign will somehow magically be unaffected, and nearly the entire media and pundit class will eagerly jump on that nonsensical narrative.

And why not? It’s outright fiction, but it’s good for short term ratings. Why wouldn’t the media and pundit industry – and it is an industry – just go along with Trump’s laugh out loud version of the story? The longer they can keep up the narrative that Trump is somehow magically off the hook and therefore invincible and therefore inevitable for 2024, the easier it is to emotionally manipulate audiences into staying glued to their screens for now.

When Trump’s indictments cause the wheels to start falling off his 2024 “campaign,” the media and pundit class will spend awhile pretending it’s not happening. If ten polls say Trump’s indictment has killed his 2024 prospects, and one wacky outlier poll says Trump is still magically in the game, the media and pundit class will only quote that one poll while ignoring all the others.

This fictional media narrative about Trump remaining viable after indictment will continue until the point that it’s become painfully obvious to audiences that Trump is not in contention. Only then will they deliver the shocking “breaking news” about Trump’s prospects falling to pieces, and they’ll act like no one could have seen it coming.

If this sounds overly cynical or harsh, consider that nearly the entire media and pundit class just got done spending all this time trying to distract you from the inevitability of Trump’s indictment by insisting it would never happen. Now that even the average giraffe has figured out Trump is being indicted, the media and pundit class is simply shifting to a new narrative about how his indictment somehow magically won’t impact him or his prospects. Again, these are the people who spent all this time urging you to ignore the overwhelming signs that Trump was being indicted, and insisted he would never be indicted.

You have to keep in mind that any honest prognosticator – whether optimist, pessimist, or otherwise – is going to look at something like Trump being indicted and acknowledge that it obviously and sharply decreases Trump’s odds getting away with anything. The only honest debate would be over just how sharply it harms Trump’s prospects.

When a political prognosticator looks at Trump being indicted, and tries to spin it as proof that Trump has now definitely gotten away with it all, that’s not pessimism – that’s lying. You’re being lied to, by the people in the media and pundit industry who believe that their career prospects and job security are dependent on keeping you convinced for as long as possible that Trump is somehow magically going to get away with it all no matter what.

If this cartoonish shift – from “Trump will never be indicted” to “Trump’s indictment means there’s no stopping him now” – doesn’t wake some people up when it comes to how thoroughly the media and pundit industry likes to bullshit you, I don’t know what will. This kind of thing is predictable enough that I was able to tell you in advance how the industry would try to dishonestly spin this, and then sit back and be proven right. It’s just getting sad.