Dem
49
Ties
1
GOP
50
For two years, Donald Trump has been a retired politician and a non-user of Twitter. That has given us all a blissful respite from the most tiring elements of his public career, even if it was still necessary to pay some attention to his ongoing legal issues.
The respite will soon come to an end, it would seem. Trump held one of his rallies in Ohio last night. And given his desire for attention (and in particular his desire to steal some of Gov. Ron DeSantis', R-FL, thunder upon winning his reelection bid), there was some thought that the former president might announce his 2024 presidential bid then and there. Trump did not do that, which caused GOP leadership to issue forth with a collective sigh of relief. But he did say: "I'm going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15."
The obvious inference here, and the one that absolutely everyone is making, is that next Tuesday is when he'll make it official and throw his hat into the 2024 ring. The tease is so obvious that if it's anything else, the MAGA faithful will be deeply disappointed. Trump is undoubtedly used to disappointing his romantic partners, but he doesn't like to let the MAGA crowd down.
Alternatively, though we've not seen any coverage that suggests this is the case, Trump might be announcing his return to Twitter that day. That would get him a bunch of headlines, and would get Elon Musk a bunch of headlines, and would allow The Donald to keep his largest and shiniest bullet in the chamber, for deployment later in search of even more headlines.
It could also be the case that this is a giant put-on, for the amusement of team Trump, and that what he's really going to announce is something dumb, like a new Trump-branded BBQ sauce, or a new grift/super PAC, or a line of Trump-endorsed adult undergarments. But we doubt it.
No, in the next week, he's almost certainly going to become a presidential candidate again, or a Twitter user again, or both. And so, two years of relative peace and quiet will come to an end. You might want to order an industrial-sized bottle of aspirin from Amazon right now, and avoid the rush. Or a case of bourbon,
This also gives AG Merrick Garland a fairly clear deadline if he believes it's important to file charges before Trump is a presidential candidate. The Hill had a piece yesterday in which several legal experts agreed with us (and with the readers), and said that appointing a special counsel is a meaningless gesture that will not serve to depoliticize the situation in any meaningful way. We assume the AG will reach the same conclusion, if he hasn't already. If so, he would seem to have only three options left on the table: (1) file charges quickly, (2) file charges against an active presidential candidate, and (3) don't file charges at all. (Z)