The Last Great Resurrection of Vice President Joe Biden: CNN’s View on the Republican Embarrassment and Reionization

CNN political analyst and professor of history at the University, Julian Zelizer, is in fact an analyst for the network. He is an author and editor of a number of books. Follow him on social media. The views he expresses are not of his own. View more opinion on CNN.

After acknowledging that his party had suffered a disappointing result in the elections, Trump set his sights on winning another term in Washington and clashing with two GOP governors who could challenge his status as the party’s anchor.

While Trump has been hinting at another run for months, the news would certainly send shockwaves through the political world. Trump is arguably one of the most controversial and destabilizing political leader in contemporary US history. His presidency was consequential, as evidenced by recent Supreme Court decisions such as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, as well as toxic rhetoric and support for conspiracy theories within the GOP.

While there was an audible sigh of relief in many parts of the country after President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, some Democrats might feel that Trump’s reemergence is good news for the party. Biden seems to have the recipe for defeating Trump after all, as he said it is his intent to run again. The contrast that he automatically presents – a stable, experienced and low-key political leader– is powerful. Trump’s presence on the campaign trail would likely also unite Democrats behind Biden and allow the President to raise significant campaign funds.

If the midterm campaigns have shown the Democrats anything, it is that the Republicans remain a strongly united party. That unity can’t be shaken. The “Never Trump” contingent failed to emerge as a dominant force after Trump left the White House. Indeed, officials such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney were purged from the party.

Even with flawed candidates like Dr. Mehmet Oz and Herschel Walker running for Senate seats, polls show the GOP is doing well going into Tuesday’s election. Democrats are trying to hold onto several seats and candidates in reliably blue states like New York are at risk.

If Republicans take control of the Senate and House next week, it will be seen as a positive sign that they will continue to promote their culture wars and talk about the economy over the next four years. With a strong showing in the elections, the GOP will likely be able to unite behind Trump. Although there has been copious speculation about the rise of other Trump-like Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, it’s likely they will look “liddle” once the former President formally reenters the political arena – as his formidable opponents learned in the 2016 Republican primaries.

The GOP victory would embolden Trump. At this point, he has largely escaped accountability. Despite ongoing criminal investigations and the House select committee investigating January 6, Trump is still a viable political figure.

If Trump announces he is running, the Department of Justice might announce a special counsel to investigate the president’s actions and whether or not he tried to interfere with the election. It will be difficult for Trump to stop his attacks on Robert Muller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. And once Trump is formally a candidate, it will make prosecuting him all the more difficult. Trump, a master of playing the victim, is sure to claim (as he has in the past) that any investigation is simply a politically motivated “witch hunt” intended to take him out of the running.

If Trump avoids prosecution, he’d surely unleash a fierce assault on the President, who could very well still be struggling with a shaky economy and divisions within his own party. And if election deniers enter positions of power after the midterms, and Trump escapes any punishment for January 6, it’s likely he will take advantage of the loyalists who have infiltrated state and local election offices to make sure that victory is his. Trump will also come to the race having been to this rodeo before, which will mean he can perfect the technique and rhetoric that put him into office in 2016. And now that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter, Trump could be reinstated – giving him a way to direct and shape the media conversation once again. Since he was banned fromTwitter, Trump has been an active user at Truth Social, but he has not stated publicly that he will return.

Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and O’Dea: Two Disloy Stars at the Tip of the Spear for the GOP

The midterms have shown that the Democrats’ focus on the radical nature of the GOP and the dangers posed to democracy are not necessarily enough to rally voters. Democrats are struggling to retain power despite the many dangers outlined by Biden in his closing speech.

Of course, the fact that Trump poses a very serious threat in 2024 doesn’t mean he will win. It is not certain if Trump will win over swing states with the help of independents and Republicans. And as we have seen with President Barack Obama’s run against Mitt Romney in 2012, presidents who have faced tough reelection campaigns can still find a path to victory.

This sudden flurry of activity follows Trump’s initial-two state campaign swing last weekend, which saw the former president slam another potential rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who he claims is showing disloyalty by considering his own run. This prompted a veiled counter-punch from the rising star of Republican politics, who noted pointedly that he – unlike you know who – had won reelection.

The former president will welcome supporters in Miami, the third stop in a four-city tour that has effectively made Trump a leading player in his party’s fight for control of Congress. While Donald Trump tries to close out his bid for a second term, Florida governor Rick Scott is focusing on his own events and steering clear of the presumptive Republican nominee.

“We have two very stubborn, very type-A politicians in Florida that are at the tip of the spear for the GOP,” said one Republican official who asked not to be named. They both command attention but they also have their own political operations, that is what you are seeing. It is already difficult to talk about.

DeSantis recently endorsed Republican businessman and Colorado Senate candidate Joe O’Dea, as O’Dea vowed in October to “actively campaign” against Trump.

Of course, Trump has not been in a hotly contested primary since 2016, when he unleashed broadsides against more than a dozen-plus opponents with fury and vitriol that shocked some Republican observers but delighted a segment of the Republican primary electorate that would later evolve into his loyal base. Most of Trump’s allies think he will behave the same in the months to come. Even if he remains the only declared candidate, he’ll keep fighting against perceived challengers.

The former president’s criticism of Youngkin, whose 2021 gubernatorial bid he endorsed against former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe, came on the heels of a spate of insults Trump launched against DeSantis, the popular Florida governor who has refused to rule out a 2024 campaign against the former president and increasingly appears to be laying the groundwork for one. In the space of one week, Trump got rid of his nickname for the Florida governor and began to criticize him again in a stinging statement on the heels of Ron DeSantis.

He said he was a fighter who stood up against medical experts when they criticized him for reopening the state and banning coronaviruses, as well as a campaign ad that says he was created by God to fight for Florida.

The governor received huge cheers when he told the story of how Florida sent almost 50 immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, a stunt that had faced scrutiny and legal challenges.

Some of the party’s top donors have been meeting with other potential presidential hopefuls to see if they’re interested in funding alternative candidates. It is a concern for Trump allies as they privately explore ways to make the huge pile of money he has raised since leaving office available to him as a presidential candidate. The richest man in the country toldPOLITIC in an interview last week that he’d support the winner of the GOP nomination for president in four years, if the governor of Florida decided to run. Two Republican donors who gave to Trump in 2016 and 2020 and asked not be identified told CNN that they were also waiting to see what the candidates would do and one of them said they’d be willing to back a candidate they didn’t already support.

Trump’s pre-election travel is motivated at least in part by his desire to launch a third campaign for the White House, CNN reported this week. Indeed, during a visit to Iowa on Thursday, Trump told voters in the first-in-the-nation caucus state to “get ready” for his return as a presidential candidate. Trump stopped in Pennsylvania on Saturday – home to the tight Senate race between his endorsee, Republican Mehmet Oz, and Democrat John Fetterman – and he’ll spend election eve in Ohio, where the former president endorsed Republican J.D. Vance in the Senate race against Democrat Tim Ryan.

Republicans are optimistic they will win the stronghold of Democrats for the first time in two decades, as evidenced by the decision to hold the rally in Miami-Dade County. The party has seen a rise in enthusiasm in recent elections due to the investments made by it in the area’s Hispanic neighborhoods. Republicans will hold an advantage in voter registration on Election Day for the first time in Florida’s modern political history.

But as Sen. Marco Rubio, a one-time frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, knows, neither success in Florida nor success in theory naturally translates into national victory. Part of that is due to the particulars of Florida. The electorate there has become more conservative in recent years as the country has coalesced around center- left policies.

DeSantis said that “Biden touches it and turns into something worse than gold.” A large majority of Americans believe the country has seen its best days. They think that we’re clearly on the wrong track. I think Florida has the recipe for other states to follow.

Glenn Beck, the right-wing talk radio host, made a suggestion the day after the elections that many Republicans had been longing for, but he was half-joking and said that he hoped to linger over the visions of a red tsunami that wiped out Democrats. The party had an abysmal show in the midterm, and it felt too bad to linger on.

DeSantis is expected to spend the next few months further cementing his status as a rising GOP star by pushing his hard-core conservative agenda through the Republican-run state legislature, a strategy likely to delay any announcement. But Trump’s attacks are a sign that if he does jump into the race, DeSantis can expect the same kind of ruthless filleting of his record and character that Trump brought to bear on rivals, like another (former) Florida governor, Jeb Bush, during the 2016 race.

At the DeSantis victory rally, supporters made clear that they saw his winning platform as a springboard. Chants of “two more years!” filled the room, a sign that they would rather see DeSantis in the White House than the governor’s mansion come 2025.

While DeSantis is a formidable potential candidate on paper, he would have to develop the capacity to defend himself from Trump’s fearsome debate stage broadsides, as well as a rhetorical nimbleness that he hasn’t yet shown. He had to fight off Trump without alienating parts of the GOP base that still maintain an almost mythical devotion to the former president.

He has married that political style with a strong man persona. He targeted corporations, public health workers and protestors as governor for opposing his policies. He has sent police to round up voters with felony convictions who are confused about the state’s efforts to strip their voting rights after they have been restored. He has bent the Florida legislature to his will, whipping up support for anti-gay laws, a new redistricting map and punitive legislation targeting Disney after the company criticized the state’s infamous “don’t say gay” bill.

The Democratic Party in Florida is in tatters, struggling to field and support candidates, and organize and mobilize voters. And Florida has a specific mix of Latino voters that is unlike most other states, weighted heavily toward immigrants from Cuba and Venezuela who respond favorably to DeSantis’s attack on Democrats as socialists.

Donald Trump is also a Florida resident. The Dump Trump crowd feels that they are overlooking the fact that the cult of personality surrounding Trump is still very much alive and well in parts of the party.

“There’s no way to deny Donald Trump got fired Tuesday night,” Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican who has been critical of Trump, told “CNN This Morning” on Thursday. One of the people brought to the top of the list is Ron DeSantis. I think Ron DeSantis is being rewarded for a new thought process with Republicans and that solid leadership.”

If there is a campaign launch in 2024, the timing remains up in the air. When reports first surfaced that Trump intended to start his campaign in late November, those in the circle of DeSantis were anticipating a quick change from election to primary season. Now, several consultants in Florida say DeSantis likely won’t formally jump into the presidential field until after state lawmakers meet for their annual legislative session. That would put DeSantis on a timeline of a May or June announcement.

“Build anticipation,” one longtime Republican fundraiser with knowledge of DeSantis’ operation said. “I think DeSantis controls the time frame. He calls the shots now because you want to move quickly.

The session of the legislature will be a lot of fun, said a GOP consultant. They will pass any proposal that he comes up with and it will become law.

“Anything “woke” they can find to kill within the path, they’re going to do that”, said a Republican fundraiser who predicted this spring that financial institutions would be a target.

One Republican consultant told CNN that if you went into a presidential primary with Donald Trump, you would have something else to worry about.

I don’t know if he is running. In an interview with Fox News Digital, Donald Trump stated that if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. “I think he would be making a mistake. I don’t believe it will be good for the party, and I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering.

Trump later downplayed Tuesday’s election results, noting he received “more votes” than DeSantis in Florida in 2020. Presidential races usually have much higher turnout than midterms and Trump’s margin of victory over Biden was about 3 points.

Donald Trump will begin the next phase of his political career if he announces his third presidential bid on Tuesday.

The New York businessman entered the political sphere seven years ago on defense, working diligently to cast himself as a serious contender for the GOP presidential nomination to the incredulity of his primary opponents. This time, Trump takes the plunge and finds himself in a defensive crouch as the party’s unquestioned leader.

The three Republican Senate candidates who gained Trump’s support in their primaries lost to Democrats in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. Meanwhile, Herschel Walker, a longtime Trump friend challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, is headed to a December runoff after both failed to reach 50% support in Georgia.

The party was left on tenterhooks when CNN projected on Saturday that Democrats will retain control of the Senate in the 118th Congress and that it would be a big announcement by Trump.

A Conversation with Glenn Youngkin: Nominating a GOP Presidential Candidate in Georgia to Defend Walker in Georgia (and The Future of the GOP)

“I Endorsed him, did a very big Trump Rally for him telephonically, got MAGA to Vote for him – or he couldn’t have come close to winning,” Trump said of Youngkin in a Truth Social post last week.

When a leader becomes a liability, such as when Trump becomes a liability, a true leader understands, said Earle-Sears. The voters have stated that it is time for a leader to step off the stage, and so a true leader understands that.

Sears later declined to tell The Washington Post whether Youngkin knew prior to the interview that she planned to split from Trump, a detail that caught the former president’s attention, according to one of his aides.

“If Glenn Youngkin decides to run for president, that’s his choice. John Fredericks, a Virginia based conservative radio host who chaired the Trump campaign in the state in 2016 and 2020, said Team Trump will mount a massive effort to win the Virginia delegates going to Milwaukee.

“I know there’s a lot of criticism and people saying, ‘Just focus on Georgia,’ but he figures there’s no point in waiting. The current Trump adviser said that if Herschel is the winner, he won’t be credited with revitalizing the base because he won’t get any credit.

Republicans should be prepared for a significant increase in Trump’s attacks on GOP challengers once he becomes a president, as the party prepares for the fight against Walker in Georgia.

Nobody should be surprised. This is how Trump does his nominating, according to Michael Caputo, a former administration official who is close to the former president. “The question you have to ask is whether this format can work for him again.”

A person close to Trump said that the campaign will be facing one of its largest challenges in terms of raising funds, but that Trump has proved that he does not need deep-pocketed donors.

Some Trump allies said the donor challenges, midterm outcome and questions about his stature has left a dearth of seasoned campaign operatives willing to join his next campaign. The president has told his friends that he doesn’t want his operation to be too lean, but some have privately questioned whether it’s out of Preference or due to recruitment troubles. CNN has previously reported that Trump’s likely campaign is expected to be helmed by three current advisers – Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita and Brian Jack – with assistance from a group of additional aides and advisers with whom the former president is already familiar. Multiple sources said his apparatus would dwarf his reelection campaign two years ago.

Either way, as Trump works to find his footing on the verge of a presidential campaign that could coast to the party’s nominating convention or encounter any number of unforeseen troubles, allies who have stuck by his side said they are ready for battle one last time.

A Conversation with Sununu: Defending the 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate in Granite State (and Other) Using a Trump White House Run

Governor Sununu told Dana Bash on CNN that he thought Ron DeSantis would win the Granite State’s GOP primary. Sununu told Bash that he is considering a White House bid of his own in 2024 and took a jab at Trump for his speech to party activists in a state where he won the 2016 GOP primary.

Taking it a step further, Sununu – who just won a fourth two-year term in the Granite State by 15 percentage points – said it’s “un-American” to “be a country where the best opportunity for our future leadership is the leadership of yesterday.”

However, the survey also found that if Trump wins the party’s 2024 nomination, a likely majority of Republican-aligned voters would back him in the general election.

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him @[email protected]. The commentary has his own opinions. CNN has more opinion on it.

It’s hard to know for sure who the “fool” is that Lake was referring to, but my guess would be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who seems to be biding his time ahead of a possible White House run. DeSantis appears — at least for the moment — to pose the greatest threat to Trump’s bid to repeat as the Republican Party’s presidential standard-bearer.

In a memorable scene from the film, ahead of an imminent fight with Rocky Balboa, Clubber Lang is asked by a reporter whether he hates the eponymous boxing legend, portrayed by Sylvester Stallone.

A Possible Trump vs. DeSantis Showdown: The Clubber Lang Film of the 2016 GOP Presidential Candidate Race and the Failure of Rubio

One of the strongest points of the DeSantis record for many conservatives is his fight against federal Covid-19 restrictions and recommendations. But Trump accused the DeSantis team of trying to “rewrite history” over his pandemic record. “There are Republican governors that did not close their states,” Trump told reporters. There was a time when Florida was closed.

In March 2020, in response to the rapidly spreading pandemic, the Florida governor issued an executive order closing bars and nightclubs, and urged people to follow US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines limiting gatherings on beaches to no more than 10 people.

His recent statements deviated sharply away from sensible, government imposed Covid-19 protections in order to appeal to the GOP’s Covid-denying base voters ahead of an anticipated presidential run.

DeSantis has come out against lockdowns, mask mandates, vaccines and other measures meant to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The supposition by many political observers is that the about-face has largely been motivated by an impending White House bid.

Any potential run means a face-off with Trump who is the only Republican to have formally announced in the race. 40 years after its release, the movie “Rocky III” may be the basis of the GOP’s nomination campaign in four years.

There’s another moment in the film that springs to mind as I consider a possible Trump vs. DeSantis showdown. The scene involves Clubber Lang goingading Rocky into a fight after losing the boxing title.

It would be too much to say that his rivals sense weakness given the former president’s deeply loyal bond with activist Republicans who decide primaries. After his often disastrous midterm interventions, Trump has a lot of electoral drawbacks, such as his low-energy launch last year and lack of campaign appearances.

During the 2016 GOP presidential race, Trump and Rubio were among the Republicans vying for the opportunity to square off against the eventual Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Early in the primary campaign, Trump was seen as the GOP’s candidate to beat.

That’s when Rubio finally took the gloves off, calling Trump “an embarrassment” and a demagogue. But it was too little, too late for Rubio, who lost the Florida GOP primary, and ended up dropping out of the race the next day.

When an attack is imminent, don’t fire unless fired upon, but fire back with “overwhelming force,” according to the “Top Gov.” who is seated in the cockpit of a fighter jet. He said never to ever back down from a fight.

Perhaps DeSantis — a Harvard Law School graduate and former federal prosecutor — is waiting to see if Trump is criminally indicted, in the hopes he doesn’t have to meet him on the field of battle. Just last week, Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis told a judge that “decisions are imminent” in her investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to interfere in the 2020 election in Georgia.

But to prevail, you have to put up a fight. There is a chance that the GOP voters will view DeSantis’ refusal to defend himself and punch back as weakness.

The longer he is silent in the face of Trump’s barrage of punches, the more likely people will ask themselves, as Rocky’s nemesis did: If he ain’t no coward, why won’t he fight?

Trump’s Two Years of Fury in South Carolina During his First Day in New Hampshire, and his Call into a Farmers Market for Election-denying Candidates Kari Lake

There was also something jarring about a former president who tried to steal the last election – and incited an insurrection to try to cling to power – campaigning and being embraced by supporters as if nothing happened.

Trump feels that some parts of his party aren’t sufficiently thankful for his tumultuous one-term presidency and he believes he is owed the Republican nomination.

“So then when I hear he might run, I consider that very disloyal. While speaking with reporters on his jet this weekend, Trump said that it is always about loyalty but not for a lot of people.

“He comes to New Hampshire, and, frankly, he gives a very mundane speech. Sununu told Bash that the response was that he stuck to the talking points and went away. The fire and energy that many people saw in ’16 was not brought by him. It was a little disappointing to some people. … So I think a lot of folks understand that he’s going to be a candidate, but he’s also going to have to earn it. And that’s New Hampshire.”

Judging by his remarks about DeSantis and evangelical leaders, Trump is not yet ready to acknowledge that reality. Though his decision to visit an ice cream parlor late in the day in South Carolina was an unusual foray into retail politics and first-person contact with voters.

During his speech Saturday, Trump said that his two years of fury over the 2020 election may have turned off voters, potentially costing the Senate in two years’ time.

“This campaign will be about the future. This campaign will be focused on issues. Joe Biden has put America on the fast track to ruin and destruction and we will ensure that he does not receive four more years,” Trump said at a small event Saturday in the South Carolina State House.

He hasn’t stopped using his standard rhetoric. On Sunday evening, he called into a rally for one on his favorite election-denying midterm candidates – failed Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, who is still falsely insisting she won in November. And earlier on Saturday, in New Hampshire, the former president – who is facing criminal investigations by the Justice Department and a district attorney in Georgia over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election – could not resist taking aim at institutions that are revealing the true course of events in 2020.

“We’re going to stop the appalling weaponization of our justice system. There’s never been a justice system like this. It’s all investigation, investigation,” Trump said. And he explained that his resistance to probes is proof that many Republicans embraced the very same qualities that helped propel him to the White House.

He said that he will do it again and again if you vote for him next year.

The End of the Countdown: When a New Leader Can Come into the 2020 Presidential Campaign? An Analysis with Nikki Haley

According to a person familiar with her plans, Haley is going to announce she is running for president on February 15 in Charleston.

She’s expected to send an invite to her supporters announcing the special event in the coming days, according to sources familiar with the matter. The precise details of her launch have yet to be revealed. One source claims that she could publicly signal the announcement will come with video in the coming days, but that is not true.

The Washington Post first reported on the date and location of the expected announcement, and The Post and Courier had more information on Haley’s preparations.

“Ever since she left the governor’s office for the United Nation, there’s always been a sense in South Carolina that Nikki would be preparing for a much larger launch,” Dave Wilson, the president of the Christian nonprofit Palmetto Family Council, told CNN. “Now we’re in a presidential countdown window. Everyone had better buckle up.”

Is the current situation pushing for new leadership when you are considering running for president? The second question is, if that person could be a new leader. she told Fox News.

She engineered a smooth exit from the Trump administration on her own terms. The photo-op she took in the Oval Office looked like it was going to be used for a future Republican campaign. Haley is being clear about her pitch, one that could allow she to gently argue that it’s time to move on from the ex- president and President Joe Biden without completely repudiating the Trump presidency.

One of the defining early questions of the 2024 presidential election seems about to be answered with some of the ex-president’s potential rivals for the Republican nomination making clear moves toward the race.

Increasingly clear indications of several forming campaigns are notable because they appear to show that Trump, who has been the most influential force in the GOP ever since 2016, is not so prohibitively formidable that he cannot be challenged by serious rivals.

Still, having multiple rivals would help Trump, as it did in 2016, since the winner-take-all nature of most Republican primaries allows a candidate with a mere plurality of votes to build up big delegate leads in a crowded field.

In other words, if Trump can split the opposition, he can win the primary, but that’s no guarantee for the general election given that the twice-impeached former president left Washington in disgrace after trying to steal an election and fomenting a mob attack on the US Capitol.

“It is time for a new generation. It is time for more leadership. … We have to remember, too, we have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president,” Haley said in a Fox News interview last month. “It is time we get a Republican in there that can lead and that can win a general election.”

Yet the most fundamental question that Haley will face is whether the Republican base, which has rewarded culture warriors, extreme “Make America Great Again” rhetoric and election denialists, has any interest at all in what she plans to sell.

When considering the values of the party where she is vying for the nomination, her credentials are not as strong as they should be. Does the GOP really need a more unifying, multicultural, less strident delivery vehicle for Donald Trump’s “America First” creed? After all, the ex-president’s bombast, occasional profanity and laceration of liberal government and media elites create more of an emotional rather than a directly ideological connection with his biggest fans.

Haley’s struggles to reconcile her past links with Trump and his wilder, anti-democratic outbursts, suggest she is vulnerable to counter-attacks from the former president focusing on her ambition and perceived shifting loyalties.

She rebuked her party after she left the administration for following apath he shouldn’t have taken with his election denialism. But with Trump still a powerful figure in the GOP, she repositioned herself in October 2021.

The casting of the former South Carolina governor as a candidate for the GOP sweetspot has some wondering just how she will build a wide support base to get the nomination.

“I’ve spent time in Iowa and New Hampshire. He said at the Washington, DC, forum that this was not random. “We’re just trying to figure our way through this. It is an unbelievably momentous decision to say you believe you should be the leader of the United States of America,” he added.

Positioning the U.S. Senator in the Post-Republican War: What Pompeo and Haley can tell us about Pompeo

While Haley has an issue with positioning, Pompeo has an issue since he was the ex-president’sEnforcer at the State Department and CIA and shared many of the nationalist foreign policy instincts of his former boss. The GOP primary voter could get almost anything from the West Point graduate and former Kansas congressman, if they chose to, although they would have to contend with Trump’s calmer temperament.