What’s really going on with this GOP draft resolution to declare Donald Trump the presumptive 2024 nominee

| 5:25 pm EST January 25, 2024
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Donald Trump showed more weakness as a candidate than ever this week when he won the New Hampshire primary with barely half the vote, even as Nikki Haley finished in a much stronger second place than expected. With Trump’s senility now getting major headlines, and his criminal trials approaching, he’s more vulnerable than ever, right? So why is the RNC suddenly reviewing a draft resolution that would declare him the presumptive nominee?

As always, it’s important to keep in mind that stories like this make their way to the media for a reason. If the RNC were simply looking to pass such a resolution, it would want to do so without warning, so that people like Nikki Haley wouldn’t be able to do anything to keep it from happening. The RNC certainly wouldn’t leak to the media that it was reviewing such a resolution.

So what’s really going on here? The reporting on the draft resolution seems to come entirely from the point of view of Trump’s allies who want it to happen, including identifying the person who submitted the resolution.

This strongly suggests that Trump and his allies submitted this draft resolution to the RNC, and then leaked it to the media in the hope of pressuring the RNC into swallowing it. In other words, this is probably yet another instance of a weakened Trump trying to find a way to “look strong,” when it’s possible that the RNC has no intention of doing anything with this resolution.

Even as the media goes on and on about how awful it is that the RNC is reviewing this resolution, the media is going along with the premise that the RNC is indeed considering this resolution. It’s like submitting a job application and then leaking to the media that the company is “considering” you for the job, when in reality the company might just review your application and then throw it in the trash. In other words, the media is doing what it so often does, which is to play right into Trump’s hands by helping him look stronger than he is.

We’ll see what happens here. Keep in mind that even if the RNC does end up passing this resolution, it won’t actually mean anything. It won’t make Trump the nominee. He’d still have to win the delegates as the various states continue to vote, and then he’d have to nail down the nomination at the convention this summer. So this resolution would mean nothing. But as of now there’s no reason to believe that the RNC is even really considering passing it. Update, 7:05pm: Now Trump says he doesn’t want to be named the presumptive nominee – which probably means that, as we suspected, the RNC was never even considering it to begin with.