On Friday, February 28, 2025, the White House hosted Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  Trump, Zelenskyy, and Vice President J. D. Vance met for 50 minutes in the Oval Office in the presence of reporters and TV cameras.

For the first 40 minutes, Trump and Zelenskyy were very polite to each other.  Even then, however, it was clear that they had two different narratives in mind.  From Zelenskyy’s point of view, it was all about the need for Russia, which invaded Ukraine three years ago, to withdraw, and for the United States and other countries to provide guaranteed security to Ukraine for the future.  Zelenskyy showed pictures of the brutality and stated that 20,000 children had been kidnapped and were being re-educated in Russia.  Trump, on the other hand, saw it as being about making a deal–he used the word “deal” over and over again.  And while Zelenskyy spoke of Russian president Vladimir Putin as a monster and the sole aggressor in the war, Trump spoke of the war as a conflict between two mutually hostile powers and spoke of Putin as someone who could be counted on for a fair deal.  Trump repeatedly called President Biden stupid and blamed Biden for prolonging the war while Trump, had he been president, would have prevented it by working out a deal from the very start.  Trump wrote (or rather had Tony Schwartz ghostwrite for him) a book titled The Art of the Deal some years ago, and he seemed to regard the answer to this mess being a deal.  The only provision of the “deal” that Trump even got specific about was US access to Ukrainian minerals.

Trump was resoundingly noncommittal about future security guarantees.  He mentioned that European countries had pledged to help with that effort, and he suggested that the presence of US workers mining those minerals would in itself constitute a sort of security assurance for Ukraine, since Russia wouldn’t be likely to attack a country that had US workers in it.  “I’m not worried about security,” he said.  “I’m worried about getting the deal done.  Security is the easy part.”  And later, “I don’t think you’re going to need much security.  I think once this deal gets done, it’s over.  Russia’s not going to want to go back, and nobody’s going to want to go back.”    Conspicuously absent from Trump’s words were any assurances to Ukraine of protection from Russia, any suggestion that Russia was the aggressor and Ukraine the victim, or any agreement on the need for Russia to withdraw or, for that matter, concede much of anything.  Implicitly, he seemed to trust Putin to make a fair deal and then honor it.  He also implied that even if Putin broke agreements when other presidents of the United States were in power, Putin would never break an agreement on Trump’s watch.  Repeatedly, Trump referred to “the deal” and “the agreement” as being protection enough.  Zelenskyy pointed out that Putin was raining bombs down on Ukraine that day, while knowing this meeting was taking place, not much of a sign of Putin’s good faith in the peacemaking effort.

As part of calling Biden incompetent and blaming Biden for the war, Trump boasted that he had stopped a lot of wars–prevented wars that nobody ever even knew were going to happen.  “I could give you a lot of nations that would tell you right now they were probably going to war. Right now there is a nation thinking about going to war on something nobody in this room has ever heard about. Two smaller nations but still big.  I think I stopped it.”  He offered no details; you can decide whether you believe him on this.  Zelenskyy looked a little bit amused.

It was around the 40-minute mark that the meeting got contentious and heated.  It started when Vice President Vance reaffirmed the administration’s criticism of Biden’s handling of the war, referring to Biden’s approach as “chest thumping.”  Vance then said, “What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy.  That is what President Trump is doing.”  Zelenskyy responded by reviewing Putin’s past aggressions and failing to honor agreements, including the 2014 occupation of Crimea.  Now, Vance got angry, told Zelenskyy that it was disrespectful of him to “come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this before the American media….  You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.”  This set off a direct quarrel between Trump and Zelenskyy, with Zelenskyy repeating his position, and Trump admonishing him that he doesn’t “have the cards” and should appreciate Trump for making a deal to end the war.

Rather than narrative beyond that point, I’ll just invite you to watch the video.  Again, the quarreling starts at the 40-minute mark.  There’s more to the earlier parts as well, so the whole thing is worth watching.

Here’s the full video of the meeting on C-SPAN.

Discussion of the meeting on NPR.

When Congress authorizes the spending of money by the executive branch, it is not the prerogative of the president to put a stop on that spending.  The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 affirms that principle.  Therefore, from reading the Constitution and from contemplating the notion of “checks and balances,” one would think that when the president does attempt to block spending that has been approved by Congress, Congress would be up in arms about it.  However, there’s a factor that the framers did not take into account when they designed the structure of government:  political parties.  The spending in question was authorized by past Congresses, either with bipartisan or all-Democratic support.  The current Congress has a Republican majority, and nearly all of the Republicans in Congress seem unconditionally loyal to Trump, no matter what he does.

Trump did rescind one of his orders, freezing the payments of most domestic grants, but some other freezes are still in effect.  What’s getting the greatest amount of attention is the cutting off of funds for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  Trump has claimed, without evidence, that there’s massive fraud in the spending, and he has also made a big deal out of reports that US money is being used to encourage transgender proclivities in overseas youth.  He’s in the process, as we speak, of putting most of the staff of USAID on furlough (article in Politico), and the funds for a lot of programs have been cut off.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is now running USAID, says exceptions will be made for live-saving programs, but it’s not clear how much of that will be a reality.  Some, including Republicans, are pointing out that USAID is one of the ways that the US competes with China for global influence (article in TheHill).

He’s also cut off money that was authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, signed by Biden in 2022, to be dispensed through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  At the moment, according to this article in Politico, he’s doing so even in defiance of a federal court order to release the funds.

Trump’s support base things the EPA is superfluous, thinks climate change is a hoax, and thinks the United States is too generous to the rest of the world, so these actions aren’t likely to bother them much.  But Trump is acting like an autocrat, and it is going to be very significant to see what limits on his power he actually faces.

In a number of issue areas–climate change, DEI, foreign aid–newly elected president Donald Trump has been proceeding differently from most presidents.  Instead of trying to get a wide range of expert opinions to consider before making decisions, Trump is starting by making decisions and doing his utmost to purge the government of all persons whose opinions aren’t in line with his own, including civil service workers who are supposed to have job protection,  Already, a large number of government employees have been placed on leave, and many are being offered buyouts, incentives to resign.   (If everybody who got that offer accepted it, there would be real chaos in the government.)

One of the areas where Trump is setting up his own opinions as being definitive is that of transgender youth.  It’s a small minority of youth who experience gender dysphoria, and an even smaller number of them who are receiving medical treatment for it.  Thus, we’re not talking about a population group that, by itself, has a great deal of political leverage.  But it’s also true that gender dysphoria, especially when combined with lack of access to medical treatment to facilitate a sex transition, has led to suicide in a number of cases.  Sadly, I predict that Trump’s new executive order is going to cause a fresh new spate of teenage suicides.

One of Trump’s first executive orders upon taking office was a declaration that the federal government only recognizes two sexes, male and female, and only recognizes the sex shown on a person’s birth certificate as being that person’s sex.  He also, early on, announced that he was again going to kick transgender persons out of the military, on the premise that not knowing one’s own sex is a sign of weakness.  Then, on January 28, 2025, the president signed a more sweeping executive order.  It essentially does the following:

–defines minors as all persons under 19;

–defines “chemical and surgical mutilation” as including every kind of gender-affirming care for minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy;

–calls the positions of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) “junk science” and directs all federal agencies to reject WPATH positions and draw up new policies of “best practices”; implicitly, it can be assumed that those “best practices” will be in line with Trump’s own position;

–directs all federal agencies to deny funding to agencies that are researching gender-affirming care for minors; and

–calls for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to use leverage, including Medicare and Medicaid funding conditions, to stop health care facilities from providing gender-affirming care (or, as he calls it, “chemical and surgical mutilation”) to minors.

Anyone reading that executive order would get the impression that Trump is trying to protect minors.  However, he is disregarding the suicide factor, and he is also failing to consider that the medical profession most likely already has safeguards in place–perhaps needing some tweaking–to ensure that minors don’t make the decision to alter their gender lightly.  He clearly holds the position that persons who feel themselves to be in the wrong body–minors and adults alike–need to be counseled to accept the sex they were born with and move on.  That may sound good in theory, but in a lot of cases it doesn’t work in practice.

I don’t think this is even the end.  This executive order involves minors, but he has also said that he plans to stop government-subsidized insurance from paying for transgender care for adults.

This is an important issue to be watching.

Full text of the executive order (please click and read)

UPDATE:  A group of families and advocacy groups is suing in federal district court to stop this executive order from taking effect.  Article in TheHill, February 4, 2025.

UPDATE:  After I wrote this, it was announced that Matt Gaetz had withdrawn from consideration for the job of attorney general (article in TheHill.com, Nov. 21).  This still leaves a number of other controversial Trump nominees, so this post and the article linked from it are still applicable and relevant.  

As is well known, in his announcements of choices for Cabinet and other important positions, Trump has announced nominations for a number of controversial figures, including Matt Gaetz for attorney general, Pete Hegseth for secretary of defense, and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.  All such nominees are subject to a confirmation vote in the Senate by a simple majority.  In the upcoming Senate term, there will be 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats (or, in a couple of cases, Independents who caucus with the Democrats).  Thus, in order for the Senate to reject any one of Trump’s choices, it will take four Republicans to vote no.  Will that happen?

The most basic point that needs to be understood here is that if any Republican senator or representative opposes Trump on anything, if that lawmaker runs for reelection afterwards, that lawmaker is very likely to be challenged in the Republican primary in that state or district by a strong Trump loyalist.  For much of the Republican Party in the electorate as well as in the government, the biggest issue has become degree of personal loyalty to Trump.  Therefore, in looking for four Republican senators to consider likely to oppose some of Trump’s nominees, one has to look for senators who either aren’t going to run for reelection or aren’t likely to feel threatened by far-right pro-Trump primary challenges.  Senators in that first category appear to include Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley.  Susan Collins of Maine is considered to be in that second category: in the next election, she’s more likely to lose to a Democratic challenger than to a pro-Trump hardline Republican.

When things are normal, most presidential nominees get confirmed.  However, when things are normal, the president doesn’t make such wild choices as Trump is making.  Then again, I happen to regard Trump himself as the wildest possible choice for president, so I can hardly be surprised that he wants Matt Gaetz for an attorney general.

This article in Politico, dated November 21, 2024, lists the senators whose votes on Trump’s nominees are uncertain, with case-by-case explanations of why.

In 1884, Republican James G. Blaine of Maine was running for president against Democrat Grover Cleveland of New York.  A few days before the election, at a dinner at a posh restaurant in New York, a supporter of Blaine, the Reverend Samuel Burchard, delivered a speech in which he called the Democratic Party the party of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion.”  The word rebellion referred to the Civil War and southern secession from the Union; the references to rum and Romanism were a slur on Irish Catholics, a group that Blaine was trying to court rather than insult.  The quotation quickly got out in circulation, and Blaine lost New York State by a razor-thin margin, thus losing the election that he otherwise would have won.

I was reminded of this Saturday night, October 27, when I heard that one of the warm-up speakers at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden made a number of racist remarks that the Trump campaign had to disavow.  It needs to be remembered that although Trump has referred to certain countries as s***hole countries and has made slurs on a number of immigrant groups, including Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, who he falsely (yes, falsely) says are eating people’s dogs and cats, Trump is still trying to win over enough Black and Latino voters in the swing states to win those states’ electoral votes.

Will this make a difference?  There are two main reasons why it may not.  First, a lot of people have already voted.  Second, Trump has earned so much bad publicity over the years that it’s really hard for any new incident or revelation to shock anybody at this point.  On the other hand, though, given how close this election is looking to be, he doesn’t have to lose very many votes to lose the election.

This article in Politico discussion the 1884 incident came out back in 2015, at a time when the 2016 primaries hadn’t yet begun but it was already clear that he was a serious contender.  And here, also in Politico, is their coverage of last night’s rally and its aftermath.

Now, a quick review of how things are looking:

The race for the presidency is a tossup, and it’s too early to gauge whether last night’s incident will make a difference.  We could get either Trump or Harris.

In the Senate, where the Democrats currently have a very narrow majority, the Republicans have the advantage in this year’s elections:  the Democrats have to hold their seats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, Montana, and Maryland just to have a 50-50 tie, and a 50-50 tie will only do them any good if Harris and Walz win so that Walz can cast tie-breaking votes for the Democrats.  In those races, the Democrats will have the hardest time winning Montana, while Pennsylvania and Ohio are considered tossups.  It should be noted that Ohio is not a state where Harris has much of a chance of winning–it’s no longer considered a presidential swing states–so the Democratic incumbent for Senate there will have to rely on crossover votes from Trump voters to win.  There are some such voters; it remains to see how many.

The House could go either way.

If Trump wins, based on the math described above, to all intents and purposes he can count on a Republican majority in the Senate.  Since it’s the Senate that confirms the president’s choices for cabinet officers, federal judges, etc., a Trump presidency with a Republican Senate will mean that he can probably get away with appointing all the Trump-loyal attack dogs he wants to positions like attorney general (the one who decides who gets prosecuted) and judgeships (though he can only appoint a judge when there’s a vacancy).

But if Trump wins, the House can still go Democratic.  Again, the House can go either way, regardless of the presidential vote.  If there’s a Democratic majority in the House, Trump won’t be able to get Congress to pass much of the legislation he’ll be desiring.  And even if the Republicans have a majority in both chambers, the filibuster in the Senate (the fact that it takes 60 senators to agree on most regular legislation) can still be a brake on Trump’s legislative power.  But again, there’s a lot he can do without the help of Congress, and again, a free hand in whom he appoints to office with him will make a difference.

And if Harris wins?  The trouble there is that she’s still not likely to have her party in the majority in the Senate, which means that she’s not likely to get much of her own legislative agenda passed.  On the campaign trail, like other candidates for president, she’s promising to do all kinds of things that the president can’t do without the cooperation of Congress.  But because the average voter doesn’t understand that (though I hope you do), in the next midterm elections the Republicans will be in a position to criticize her for not getting anything done.

So the outlook isn’t wonderful, no matter how this election goes.

I’d like to provide here a synopsis of what I’ve been saying in class about the upcoming elections, not just for the presidency but also for Congress.

First of all, a basic point:  It’s only when the president’s party is in the majority in both the House and Senate that the government will be guided by a single, coherent ideology.  A lot of people think that when there’s divided government, it forces compromise, and that’s true up to a point, but it also causes a lot of gridlock.  In the case of the present candidates, I think it’s safe to say that neither party will be willing to do anything that makes a president of the other party appear effective and successful, and for that reason you won’t be seeing a whole lot of bipartisan cooperation, no matter which way the presidential election goes.

However, the average voter doesn’t understand that.  The average voter also doesn’t understand how limited the powers of the president are.  For that reason, consider this scenario:  Suppose Kamala Harris wins the presidential election, but the Republicans get the majority in the Senate (a very real possibility) and possibly the House as well.  Under those circumstances, Harris will get very little of what she wants done.  But the general public will just think that Harris made a lot of promises and then failed to deliver, and what will they do to punish her?  They’ll vote Republican in the 2026 midterm congressional elections, making her job even tougher for those next two years.  And yes, the reverse is true as well.  (However, one scenario that has no chance whatsoever of happening is that Trump wins the White House and the Democrats take a majority in the Senate.  You may see a Harris presidency and a Republican Senate; you absolutely won’t see a Trump presidency with a Democratic Senate.)

With all that in mind, let’s consider the election prospects on all three fronts.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

There are 435 seats in the House, all of which are up for election this year.  However, most of those seats are fairly secure for either one party or the other.  At the present moment, the Cook Political Report is saying that 26 House seats are toss-ups.  Given that the Republicans currently have a narrow majority in the House, that means that the House could go either way.  Among other things, which party controls the House will determine which politicians will be the target of nasty investigative hearings by House committees, because the majority party in the House controls the leadership positions and controls each committee’s decision-making process.  But the majority party in the House will only have influence over legislation if the same party controls the Senate and the White House.  Again, for party control, the House could go either way.  You can be sure that the administrative machineries of both parties are putting a lot of money and humanpower into those competitive House district campaigns.

THE SENATE

As things stand now, no matter what happens in the presidential election, the Republicans are favored to win the Senate by a narrow majority.  I had previously said that there were seven Senate seats currently held by Democrats that could flip to Republicans, and that the Democrats must win all seven of those seats even to have a 50-50 tie.  Now, make that eight seats, because Maryland isn’t entirely secure.  The other seven states are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, and Montana.  And Montana, which had been considered a toss-up state, is now considered to be “leaning Republican,” not the same as “secure Republican” but still a tough battle for the Democrats.  Of the Senate seats currently held by Republicans, Texas and Florida come closer than others to being competitive, but they will most likely stay in Republican hands.  Now that Montana is looking bad for the Democrats, the Democrats are just now starting to take the Texas and Florida contests more seriously than before, in terms of national committee money going into the campaigns.

It needs to be remembered that for a party to truly control the Senate, it takes not just a simple majority but a 60-seat supermajority.  This isn’t because of anything in the Constitution, but rather, because of a Senate rule that requires 60 senators to approve  bringing a bill up for a vote.  Exceptions are budget reconciliation bills (bills that are purely about taxing and spending, but that can authorize creation, expansion, or continuation of a social program) and confirmation votes for presidential nominees.  There isn’t going to be a 60-seat supermajority this time around, so unless that Senate rule gets changed (the rule historically known as the filibuster), the president–whoever it ends up being–will be limited in what he or she can get Congress to pass.

Again, the Democrats need to hold all eight of those seats just to have a 50-50 tie, but a 50-50 tie will only do the Democrats any good if Harris and Walz wins, because the vice president casts tie-breaking votes.  And again, there’s no realistic chance that the Senate will have a Democratic majority if Trump wins.  What does that mean?  It means that, while Trump won’t get everything he wants from Congress in terms of legislation, he will have an easy time getting his choices for cabinet posts and federal judgeships confirmed by simple majority vote in the Senate.

Short article in Time magazine on the Senate races, October 8, 2024

THE PRESIDENCY

If you click onto this page at fivethirtyeight.com and scroll down to the snake-chart, it would appear that the election is going to hinge on Pennsylvania.  Actually, Pennsylvania is important, but so are a few other states.  I would say that the primary swing states are Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  If Harris wins those three states and there aren’t any big surprises in other states, then she’ll have the White House.  If Trump wins all three of those states, then he’ll have the White House.  But if Harris wins two of those primary swing states and Trump wins one of them, then Harris can still win the election if she also has the electoral votes of two secondary swing states.  The secondary swing states are Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.  But calling North Carolina a swing state at all is a bit of a stretch.  The Democrats have been treating it as  a state they can win, but they’ve lost it in all of the last three presidential elections.  But a Democrat has been elected governor there, so it’s possible for Democrats to wins statewide elections in North Carolina.

In past elections, Ohio and Florida were the leading swing states.  Now, realistically, for the presidency, they’re not swing states at all.  However, the Democrats do have a chance at keeping Ohio’s Senate seat–which, again, they need to win–and they hope to win Florida’s Senate seat, though that’s a longshot.

That’s where things are now.  A lot can change between now and November 5.

I hope you’re all registered to vote.

As everybody knows, on Sunday, July 21, President Joe  Biden announced that he was stepping aside and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take over the Democratic campaign for president.  Democrats promptly showered Biden with gratitude and embraced Harris.  She brought in a fresh wave of campaign contributions and is on the campaign trail now.

It’s still not going to be easy.  It needs to be remembered that even before Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 debate, he had a campaign whose prospects were bad and needed to be rescued.  The trouble with the debate wasn’t so much that it sank his prospects, as it failed to revive them.  Now that Harris has taken over, she has inherited a campaign with a disadvantage in the polls that needs to be turned around.  The big question is whether she will be able to turn it around.  As things stand now, it is still a race between two unpopular candidates, and in fact Harris’s approval rating is lower than Trump’s.  So, again, the big question is:  Can she turn it around?

This article in TheHill.com offers a concise list of what Harris has both for and against her prospects of beating Trump:  https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4787007-harris-democratic-presidential-nominee/.

I’m actually going to keep this post very brief and give you a couple of links, if you’re interested in learning more about J. D. Vance, the man Trump just picked as his vice-presidential running mate.  I will note in passing that he’s one of the ones blaming the Trump campaign for the assassination attempt on Trump this past weekend, and that his experience in government consists of a grand total of one year in the Senate.  The selection of Vance fits right in with the Trumpian neo-populist mentality, which says that outsiders to government are the perfect leaders because all it takes if the kind of common sense that the real ordinary Americans have and the educated elites lack.  We are living in bizarre times, if either Trump or Vance can be considered a serious candidate.

Article in Politico, July 15, 2024

Article in TheHill, July 15, 2024

A lot is happening; I just want to offer a few observations.

The Assassination Attempt on Trump

On Saturday afternoon, July 13, at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, a 20-year-old man with an AR-style rifle gained access to a rooftop from which he was able to fire at Trump.  He managed to graze Trump’s ear, kill another man, and wound two others before the Secret Service shot him dead.

The fact that a gunman was able to get to a rooftop with a direct view of the rally stage was a serious breach of security by Secret Service, and Biden has ordered an investigation.  Meanwhile, as investigators try to learn more about the shooter, Thomas Michael Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, conspiracy theories are flying fast and furious.  Many Democrats are  determined to believe that the whole thing was a staged inside job, while a handful of Trump supporters (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, for one, J. D. Vance for another) are blaming it on the Biden campaign.

But the big question is, how will this affect the election?  It may well help Trump.  This week is the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and there’s good reason to believe that Trump will deliver a well-behaved acceptance speech calling for national unity, which may cause many swing voters to conclude that maybe Trump isn’t so bad after all.  There’s a big difference between this year’s Trump campaign and the one back in 2016:  In 2016, Trump was not expecting to win, so he ran his campaign and ran his mouth entirely his own way.  This year, in contrast, Trump knows he can win, and he wholeheartedly wants to win, so it should be no surprise if he acts like a normal candidate so he can win.  And it’s the swing voters he needs to appeal to; he already has his loyal base in the palm of his hand.

Many talk about Trump as a threat to democracy, but if he gets back in, it will be because of democracy, as in, it will be because millions will have decided they want him in power and will have exercised their democratic right to vote for him.  Obviously, I’m not one of those people, but they are a huge number.  In any event, though, you can expect to see Trump go up in the polls after this week’s convention; the question is what will happen after that.

Article on NPR’s website, July 15, 2024

Article in Politico, July 14, 2024

Will Biden Stay in the Race?

Many Democrats are calling on Biden to step aside and let somebody else be the Democratic nominee.  Many other Democrats are supporting Biden’s decision to remain on the ticket.  Based on some remarks and inferences that I’ve picked up on, I think these next two weeks are going to be crucial.  If Biden is still the candidate the week after next, the week of July 29, then it can be assumed that he’s going to remain the candidate in November unless something cataclysmic happens after that point.  He is adamant in his public statements, but he has to be privately considering alternatives.  So, I say, be watching for what happens the week of July 29.

Trump’s Running Mate

Trump is set to announce his choice for vice-presidential running mate for the Republican ticket this afternoon.  It now looks as if his choice will be Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio.  Vance is hardly qualified for the job, and back in 2016 he was a never-Trumper.  Back then he was best known for his book Hillbilly Elegy, about the world of the working-class and rural whites he grew up with in the Midwest, people who formed a big part of Trump’s base.  I’ll have more to say about Vance if and when it becomes official.  One thing I can now:  if Trump picks Vance as his VP, it will clearly not be on the basis of picking somebody who would be qualified to be president.

Article in TheHill, July 15, 2024

The Dismissal (for now) of the Documents Case

The district court trial judge in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents case, Aileen Cannon, has granted Trump’s lawyers’ motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds that the Justice Department’s appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional.  It needs to be noted that Cannon was a Trump appointee, and at the time he appointed her to the federal bench, some questions were raised about her fitness for the job.  Some of her earlier rulings in this case were overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and there’s every possibility that this ruling will be overturned as well.  There is certainly some case law on the books allowing for the appointment of special counsels, so there is precedent for her decision to be reversed.  However, at this point (as was already the case) there is no chance of a trial starting before the election.

Meanwhile, the judge in the New York hush money case has postponed sentencing in order to consider motions for dismissal of the case on the basis of the new immunity ruling from the Supreme Court.  Trump’s lawyers are arguing that some of the evidence that the jury considered has been made inadmissible by that new ruling.

Article in Politico, July 15, 2024

Full text of Judge Cannon’s ruling

On Thursday night, June 27, President Biden gave an embarrassingly bad performance in the debate against Trump.  If you just read the transcript, you might not see anything wrong, but seeing his face and hearing his voice, the problem was unmistakable.  He may have just been under the weather that night, and there may be nothing missing from his cognitive ability, but it’s voters’ perceptions that count, and voters can easily wonder, not just what shape he’s in for the job right now, but what shape he’ll be in four years from now, since that’s how much longer he’s asking to remain in the job.

The New York Times promptly ran an editorial calling on Trump to bow out of the race for the good of the country.  It needs to be clear: it’s not that the Times wants Trump to win, but rather, they’re afraid that’s what will happen if Biden remains on the ticket.  In the days that have followed since, the Democrats, both on Capitol Hill and on social media, have been divided between those who want Biden to step aside and those who support Biden’s choice to stay in the game.  Biden himself has made it clear that he has no intention of stepping aside.  He stressed that point in an interview on ABC with George Stephanopoulos a week after the debate.

If Biden bows out before the convention, the convention delegates will vote for the new nominee.  If Biden names a successor, then presumably at least many of the delegates pledged to him will honor his wishes.  Whether he would give his endorsement to his vice president, Kamala Harris, remains to be seen.  One advantage with her is that she would have the Biden-Harris campaign money with much less complication than someone else brought in.  Apparently Trump has a nickname ready for her; I haven’t bothered to look to see what it is.  If he pulls out after the convention is over, like in the fall, the Democratic National Committee will consult with the party leadership in Congress, and with Democratic state governors, and then make a selection.

Speaking of the fall, there’s another Biden-Trump debate planned.  The pressure will be on Biden to perform, but the trouble with that is that the pressure was on him at the first debate, and it didn’t do much good.  A second bad debate performance could really be deadly.  There are apparently a lot of swing voters who, even if they don’t like Trump, think he’d be more competent than Biden.

Again, as things stand now, Biden is adamantly refusing to step aside.  But that could change.  I hope you’re all following these developments.  By the way, as I post links that include New York Times articles below, please remember that you can get a free student online subscription to the Times through the City Tech library web page (actually, that link isn’t working right now, but with any luck it will be back).  When it’s working, once you’ve signed up, you can log into the Times with your CUNY credentials.

Video of the full debate

New York Times editorial calling on Biden to step aside, June 28, 2024

George Stephanopoulos interview, July 5, 2024

New York TImes article about VP Harris’s position, July 9, 2024 

Article in TheHill.com about Senate Democrats’ doubts, July 9, 2024