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How will Trump balance campaign duties with busy legal schedule?
How will Trump balance campaign duties with busy legal schedule? – CBS News
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Trump’s Mug Shot Gives His Haters Nothing
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Produced by ElevenLabs and NOA, News Over Audio, using AI narration.
Donald Trump dropped in for a photo op in Georgia last night—not the usual kibbitz on the hustings for a former president, but a killer visual to end the week with: a mug shot.
And just like that, Trump was restored to his accustomed place in the Republican dogpile: everywhere. It was hard to look away, even if you wanted to. Former presidents do not go and get fingerprinted and mug-shotted and perp-walked every day, even the one former president who takes his arraignments in gift packs of four.
Clichés are always bad, and sometimes quite wrong, but the conceit that this would be a “split screen” week for the Republican campaign—eight GOP debaters on one screen, Trump’s co-defendants getting processed on the other—was spectacularly amiss from the start. One screen this week would blot out all of the rest.
Yes, Wednesday’s debate yielded a few enduring images—including Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and Nikki Haley all fixing simultaneous stink eyes upon Vivek Ramaswamy, as if they were about to stab him with their pens. But those moments unquestionably pale next to what emanated last night from Fulton County. Trump’s mug shot, probably the most anticipated in history, seems destined to also be the most analyzed and disseminated.
You can assume that the subject, a figure of uncommon vanity, obsessed like hell over his bureaucratic close-up. How should he pose? For what aura should he strive? Tough guy, defiant, or wounded pup? Would makeup be allowed? Thumbs-ups or no?
Trump had come and gone from the Fulton County Jail by about 8 p.m. on the East Coast. Roughly 95 percent of Americans—or at least a sampling of hyper-online individuals in my feed—furiously began refreshing social media to see if the image was out yet. There were a few fakeouts and some inspired memes. Trump’s recorded weight—215 pounds—became a topic for discussion. It was widely doubted.
Finally, around 8:40 p.m, the mug shot landed. Trump’s hair and eyebrows were more feathered than usual, like he had brushed them out. Lips were pursed, eyes stern and severe, his brow zig-zagging like lightning. The former president looked like the Grinch—the Grinch Who Stole Georgia (or tried).
One thing that seemed clear from the other co-defendant processings this week is that the “deep state” wise guy who’s in charge of the booking shots at this notorious Atlanta jail is not much interested in customer service. The alleged lawbreakers have appeared, for the most part, shaken and disoriented. The lighting in the photos is awful; a harsh shine beats down over the side of each defendant’s forehead. The lawyer John Eastman seems confused; Mark Meadows, kind of sedated; a smiling Sidney Powell looks under-slept (and bonkers); Rudy Giuliani delivered the perfect “after” image to view alongside his Time “Person of the Year” cover from 2001.
Trump’s photo offers a rough visage, formidable and extremely serious—which is what I assume he was going for. He made an effort here. It paid off. He gave his haters nothing in the ballpark of vulnerability. At 9:38 p.m., he tweeted out the image with a link to his campaign website and a message: “NEVER SURRENDER!”
Each defendant’s photo, including Trump’s, is imprinted with a prominent Fulton County Sheriff’s Office badge in the top left corner. The logo carries a subtle but powerful message: Don’t even think about portraying this as anything but a dark, singular, and deeply unpleasant occasion. This is no place for joyriders or dilettantes or Instagram peacocks. You can post bail and leave, for now, but you don’t want to come back, trust us. Take a whiff and remember it.
No doubt, Trump will. He does not like places that are “not nice.” He is sensitive to germs and smells. “There have been ongoing problems with overcrowding in the [Fulton County] jail, along with violence, overflowing toilets and faulty air conditioning,” The Washington Post reported last week.
But at least Trump was spared the spin room in Milwaukee.
For the record, Ramaswamy dominated that particular halitosis hall after Wednesday night’s debate. He kept darting from one late-night interview to the next, big-man-on-the-stage that he was. “I gotta keep moving, gotta keep moving,” Ramaswamy announced as he glad-handed his way through the sweaty scene. At one point, he approached a CNN camera where host Dana Bash was preparing to interview North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. Ramaswamy tapped Bash on the shoulder, and Bash lit up, recognizing this sleeker vessel that had drifted into precious airspace. She seized her moment, as Ramaswamy had earlier, securing the peppy capitalist after an awkward back-and-forth with the governor.
“I gotta keep moving,” Ramaswamy said again as someone tried to grab him away from Bash’s camera setup. This was his big night. Everyone was watching him, and he seemed determined to savor it all before midnight struck. Trump would be back and inescapable again soon enough.
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Mark Leibovich
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75% of people ages 50 and up worry Social Security will run out of money in their lifetimes, survey finds
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AleksandarNakic | E+ | Getty Images
The subject of Social Security was largely left untouched in the first Republican presidential debate.
But worries about the future of the program loom large in Americans’ minds, a recent survey from Nationwide Retirement Institute shows.
To that point, 75% of individuals ages 50 and up worry Social Security will run out of funding in their lifetimes, according to the survey of 1,806 individuals taken between May and June.
That is up from 66% of adults who said the same in 2014.
Those concerns have increased as the depletion dates for the program’s funds come closer. The program’s combined funds are due to run out in 2034, at which point 80% of benefits will be payable, Social Security’s trustees have said.
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If you found gold coins, the tax man wants a pieceMeanwhile, the fund the program relies on to pay retirement benefits is projected to last until 2033 — just a decade away — with 77% of benefits payable at that time.
“You’ve got people on this stage that won’t even talk about Social Security and Medicare,” former vice president Mike Pence said during Wednesday’s Republican primary debate.
In a February interview with CNBC, Pence said it was necessary to “get everybody at the table” to discuss the future of the programs.
“There’s lots of good ideas to solve this that are common sense that don’t impact people at the point of the need, that don’t affect anybody that is going to retire in the next 25 years,” Pence said, pointing to legislation passed 50 years ago that raised the retirement age and ushered in long-time solvency.
While the other candidates didn’t take Pence’s bait to debate the future of the programs on Wednesday, they have addressed them in separate interviews.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis told Fox News in July that he would “protect people’s Social Security,” though he is open to reform.
“Talking about making changes for people in their 30s or 40s so that the program’s viable, you know, that’s a much different thing, and that’s something that I think that there’s going to need to be discussions on,” he said.
Uncertainty about the future of Social Security comes as more Americans rely on the program for their sole source of income, with 21% doing so according to Nationwide’s latest retirement survey, versus 13% in 2014.
Meanwhile, just 31% said they currently have income from pensions, versus 48% who said the same 10 years ago.
While the fate of Social Security remains uncertain, experts say there are a couple of things people can do to position themselves for the most benefits available to them.
“This is one of the largest decisions you’ll make in your life” — and one people are least informed about when going into it, said Tina Ambrozy, senior vice president of strategic customer solutions at Nationwide.
1. Base claiming strategy on your personal situation
Uncertainty around the future of Social Security is the No. 1 reason many retirees are claiming before age 70 – the maximum age it pays to wait to before getting benefits – and full retirement age, when they stand to receive 100% of the benefits they earned, a Schroders survey recently found. (Find out your full retirement age by using this calculator.)
But experts say it’s still best to base your retirement claiming strategy on your personal situation, rather than fears about the program’s outlook.
Even if lawmakers fail to enact changes to Social Security before the depletion dates, the average retiree will still receive around 77 cents on the dollar, Joe Elsasser, a certified financial planner and founder and president of Covisum, a Social Security claiming software company, recently told CNBC.com.
Targeting the claiming strategy that will get you the most benefits will put you in a strong position, even if there are changes down the road.
To be sure, waiting to claim is not the best strategy for everyone, and the decision shouldn’t be based exclusively on age, Ambrozy said.
2. Get educated on the ins and outs of the rules
Social Security comes with many complex rules, and almost half of adults — 49% — said they know how to maximize their benefits, Nationwide’s survey found.
Yet just 13% of adults can correctly guess their full retirement age, which is when they are eligible for 100% of the benefits they earned.
Notably, almost half of respondents — 49% — erroneously believe their benefits will go up at full retirement age even if they claim early.
“Once you elect to start receiving benefits, it locks in,” Ambrozy said. “You’re not just going to just step up based on age.”
To avoid costly mistakes, experts say it’s best to study up on the program’s rules, including information provided by the Social Security Administration.
We just are big believers that you should ask for help and don’t wait until it’s too late.
Tina Ambrozy
senior vice president of strategic customer solutions at Nationwide
To gauge how much money you may be eligible for in retirement, it helps to set up an online Social Security account, where you can also make sure your earnings history and other crucial information is correct.
But prospective beneficiaries should avoid asking workers in their Social Security office for advice, Ambrozy said, as they may not be experts in claiming strategies.
Instead, consulting a financial advisor who is well versed in Social Security can help you identify the most optimal claiming strategy for your personal situation.
“We just are big believers that you should ask for help and don’t wait until it’s too late,” Ambrozy said. “Don’t wait until you’ve already filed and you’re starting to collect and then suddenly you realize you’ve made an incorrect choice.”
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8 Republican presidential hopefuls prep for a debate without Trump
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8 Republican presidential hopefuls prep for a debate without Trump – CBS News
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A Parade of Listless Vessels
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What are we all doing here?
The Republicans’ first primary debate dangles on the calendar like one of those leftover paper snowflakes slapped up on the mini-fridge. It feels like a half-hearted vestige—it’s late summer, five months before the first votes are cast; precedent calls for a lineup of haircuts on a stage. And for the most part, the qualifiers will oblige, except for the main haircut—former President Donald Trump, barring some last-minute fit of FOMO that lands him in Milwaukee en route to his surrender to authorities in Georgia.
So why should the rest of us bother? Would anyone watch a Mike Tyson fight if Iron Mike wasn’t actually fighting? Or The Sopranos, if Tony skipped the show for a therapy session (with Tucker Carlson)?
Poor Milwaukee, by the way, which already suffered desertion three summers ago when it was selected to host the Democratic National Convention only to have COVID keep everyone home. Joe Biden blew off his own convention and didn’t bother to send an emissary (no Jill, Kamala, or even Doug). Delegates were told to stay away, and the city was left all spiffed up for only a crew of surgical-masked functionaries.
Tonight’s pageant of also-rans must go on too. The Republican National Committee has decreed this kickoff debate to be a landmark event, sanctifying August 23 as a key date in the 2024 cycle. (“Cycle” feels like an especially apt cliché here—events spinning hypnotically in circles.) Never mind that Trump upended the traditional presidential campaign cycle years ago, and that it is now dictated by whatever whim he decides to follow at a given moment. No matter how much thunder Trump steals from this proceeding—by skipping it, counterprogramming it with Tucker, and potentially following it up with a morning-after mug shot—everyone else is still required to treat this spectacle as some big and pivotal showdown.
As such, the media will swarm into town—because this is what we do and what we love (and because datelines impress). The host network, Fox News, will hype the clash—the “Melee in Milwaukee,” or some such. One-liners are being buffed, comebacks polished, and umbrage rehearsed. And no matter how effective certain gambits are deemed to be in practice, the absence of the GOP’s inescapable front-runner will only underscore how impotent the rest of the field has made themselves.
Who knows? A debate stage crowded with eight twitchy egos carries the possibility for surprise. Strange things do happen. That’s why we watch. Trump has given his opponents an opportunity, at least in theory. They can seize this chance to hammer away at the most important issue of the campaign: Trump himself, his radiating legal jeopardy, and the recurring debacle of the GOP nominating him again and again (and probably again). This need not be the televised festival of appeasement that so many expect. And no doubt, there will be a few feisty outliers on the stage. Some of the bottom dogs—Chris Christie, maybe Mike Pence—will probably unleash some unpleasantness in the direction of the truant front-runner. They will have their “moments,” and commentators will praise them for “landing some punches.”
Even so, tonight’s contest will inevitably suffer from two basic structural flaws. The main point, theoretically, of a political debate is to try to persuade voters to support your campaign instead of the other candidates’. But that presupposes a constituency of voters who can be persuaded by hearing a set of facts, or are open to being educated. This, on the whole, is not the audience we have here. A large and determinative and still deeply committed portion of the GOP electorate—the MAGA sector—has been more or less a closed box for seven years now.
The rigid devotion that Trump continues to enjoy from much of his party keeps affirming itself in new and dispiriting ways. A CBS News/YouGov poll released over the weekend contained this doozy of a data point: 71 percent of Trump supporters said they are inclined to believe whatever Trump tells them. That compares with 63 percent who are inclined to believe what their friends and family tell them, 56 percent who believe conservative-media figures, and 42 percent who believe religious leaders.
The other structural defect involves the likely self-neutering of tonight’s putative gladiators. Ideally, a debate features participants who actually want to win. That generally requires a willingness to attack their biggest adversary, whether he’s participating in the event or not, and especially when he holds a massive lead over them. Other than Kamikaze Christie, whom Republicans will almost certainly not nominate, most of the remaining “challengers” on the stage seem content to play for second place—running mate or 2028.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis insisted otherwise on Monday, when he claimed on Fox News that he would be the only Republican debater who is “not running to be vice president, I’m not running to be in the Cabinet, and I’m not running to be a contributor on cable news.” This reeked of projection, even though DeSantis would seem especially ill-suited to being a cable personality—even less well suited than he is to running for president.
DeSantis suffered another indignity last week when The New York Times reported that a firm associated with the super PAC supporting his campaign, Never Back Down, had posted hundreds of pages of internal debate-strategy documents on its website. The game plan, summarized by the Times, called for DeSantis to “take a sledgehammer” to upstart Vivek Ramaswamy while also taking care to defend Trump from Christie’s likely bombardment. In other words, DeSantis would try to score easy goodwill by sidling up to the bully and vivisecting the real enemy, the thirsty biotech guy. So noble of the governor. Maybe Trump will send a thank-you note.
DeSantis remains, for now, the Republicans’ most legitimate threat to Trump. But if these debate directives are a guide, why is he even bothering? The blueprint appears fully emblematic of everything wrong with his campaign: a bloated venture, playing for continued viability, and zero stomach for taking on Trump in a serious way. It’s also telling that someone decided to post the document trove in such a findable space online—which is either really dumb or really indicative of how badly someone in DeSantis World wants to embarrass him.
Whether intentionally or not, DeSantis actually coined something memorable the other day when he chided Trump’s supporters for mindlessly following his every pronouncement—“listless vessels,” he called them. (He later said that he was referring to Trump’s endorsers in Congress, not voters.) This struck me as sneaky eloquence from DeSantis, or whoever wrote the line for him. But again, the phrase carried a strong whiff of projection as DeSantis prepared to lead the real parade of listless vessels to Milwaukee, content to bob along in the wake of the Titanic.
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Mark Leibovich
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8 candidates qualify for first 2024 Republican presidential debate | CNN Politics
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CNN
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Eight Republicans have qualified for the party’s first 2024 presidential primary debate Wednesday night, the Republican National Committee announced Monday evening.
The list includes North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.
Former President Donald Trump – the clear front-runner in national and early state polls – has said he would skip the debate in Milwaukee and called on his rivals to drop out.
To make the first debate stage, the RNC required candidates to draw at least 40,000 individual donors and register at least 1% support in three national polls or in two national and two early state polls that met the RNC’s criteria. The candidates were also required to sign a pledge to back the eventual winner of the GOP primary, no matter who it is. It’s not clear whether Trump, like those who will be onstage Wednesday, has signed that pledge.
“The RNC is excited to showcase our diverse candidate field and the conservative vision to beat Joe Biden on the debate stage Wednesday night,” RNC chair Ronna McDaniel said in Monday night’s statement.
Here’s a look at who’s in and who’s out of the first GOP debate of the 2024 presidential primary.
Ron DeSantis
The Florida governor could wear the biggest target Wednesday night, as the top-polling candidate onstage in Trump’s absence. DeSantis has downsized and reshuffled his campaign in recent weeks after failing to make progress toward unseating Trump as the GOP’s standard-bearer in the primary’s early months. His turn in the national spotlight Wednesday could become a turning point in the party’s primary – either launching DeSantis forward or displacing him as the top Trump alternative.
Vivek Ramaswamy
The tech entrepreneur posted a video of himself shirtless, practicing tennis, on Monday in a tweet he described as his debate prep. He has also made appearances on the sorts of liberal media programs that many Republican contenders skip, such as a podcast with HBO host Bill Maher. A memo by a pro-DeSantis super PAC made public last week advised the Florida governor to attack Ramaswamy, an indication of the 38-year-old’s rise in the race.
Mike Pence
The former vice president faced more difficulties than some of his rivals in reaching the 40,000 donor threshold but did so with two weeks to spare. He suggested he had looked forward to a showdown with his former ticket mate. Criticizing Trump’s decision to skip the debate, Pence said Sunday on ABC News that every candidate who qualified “ought to be on the stage willing to square off and answer those tough questions.”
Nikki Haley
The former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump offered a glimpse of how Republicans onstage could be more focused on chipping away at their lower-polling rivals’ support than on taking on Trump directly. On Monday, she criticized Ramaswamy, saying on social media that “his foreign policies have a common theme: they make America less safe.”
Tim Scott
The South Carolina senator has sought to offer a more positive contrast to rivals such as Trump and DeSantis – and he could be on a collision course with the Florida governor as they vie to become the top choice of those seeking to move on from the former president.
Chris Christie
The former New Jersey governor is perhaps the biggest wild card on Wednesday night’s stage. As a presidential contender in 2016, he all but ended Marco Rubio’s presidential hopes in a debate when he relentlessly mocked the Florida senator for delivering a “memorized 25-second speech.” Christie has positioned himself as a fierce Trump critic, but he won’t get a head-to-head showdown with Trump skipping the debate.
Doug Burgum
The North Dakota governor, who attracted donors with a gift-card scheme – $20 in exchange for $1 donations – has described himself as the least-known contender on Wednesday night’s stage. He said Sunday on NBC that he’ll have succeeded in the debate “if we get a chance to explain who we are, what we’re about and why we’re running.”
Asa Hutchinson
The former Arkansas governor has also positioned himself as a Trump critic. He previously complained about the RNC’s loyalty pledge requirement but told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Sunday that he was signing the pledge because he was “confident that Donald Trump’s not going to be the nominee.”
Donald Trump
The former president made official Sunday on his social media platform Truth Social what he’d hinted at for months: He is skipping the first debate. Trump pointed to his sizable leads in Republican primary polls and said Americans are already familiar with his record after four years in the White House.
Still, Trump’s campaign is attempting to seize some of the spotlight in Milwaukee. The former president has taped an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that is expected to be used as counterprogramming during the debate.
Perry Johnson
The Michigan businessman fell short of the RNC’s polling requirements despite a series of unusual schemes his campaign employed to rack up the minimum 40,000 donors necessary to qualify. It sold “I Stand with Tucker” T-shirts defending the former Fox News host after his firing. It also offered tickets to a concert by country duo Big & Rich to anyone who donated. And it handed out $10 gas cards to anyone willing to make a $1 contribution.
Perry insisted after the RNC announced the debate participants that he had met the committee’s qualification requirements. “The debate process has been corrupted, plain and simple,” he said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Francis Suarez
The Miami mayor, who had told Fox News it was “critical” for his 2024 chances to qualify for the debate, said he had exceeded the donor threshold, but he did not meet the RNC’s polling requirements. Suarez said in a statement Tuesday that he was “sorry” the event would not include his “perspectives,” but that he respects “the rules and process set forth by the RNC.”
His absence could be a break for DeSantis, who has faced sharp criticism from his fellow Florida Republican.
Will Hurd
The former Texas congressman is one of the most outspoken Trump critics in the race – and has faced backlash for it, such as when he was booed at the Iowa GOP’s Lincoln Dinner in July after telling the Des Moines crowd that the former president was “running to stay out of prison.”
Hurd on Tuesday criticized the RNC for its “unacceptable process” for determining the debate participants. He accused the committee of disregarding polls that included independents and Democrats who would have backed a Republican candidate. He previously said he wouldn’t sign the RNC pledge, but he appeared to have shifted his position last week when he said he was “confident” he would be onstage in Milwaukee.
Larry Elder
The conservative California talk radio host, who was the leading GOP candidate in the state’s 2021 gubernatorial recall, has sharply criticized the RNC’s debate qualification requirements. He said Tuesday on X that he intended sue the RNC to “halt” Wednesday’s proceedings, asserting that officials were “afraid of having my voice on the debate stage.”
Elder had attempted to meet the 40,000 donor threshold with a radio blitz Monday, but, according to CNN’s count, was also short of the polling requirements.
Ryan Binkley
The little-known Texas pastor and entrepreneur got a spot in the Iowa GOP Lincoln Dinner’s speaking lineup. He tweeted Sunday that he had more than 45,000 donors. But he has not made waves in primary polling.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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Republican candidates prepare for first debate — with or without Trump
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At least eight Republican presidential candidates say they’ve qualified for the first 2024 primary debate, which will be held in Milwaukee next week.
The party’s frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, leads the field in early-voting state polling by double digits, but he has not yet said whether he’ll join his opponents on stage.
AP
The other candidates say they’ve been preparing for a debate with or without him. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has consistently polled second behind Trump is steeling himself for attacks from other candidates.
The Republican National Committee set polling and fundraising benchmarks that candidates must meet by Aug. 21 to appear on the debate stage on Aug. 23: 40,000 individual campaign donors (including 20 states with at least 200 voters each) and at least 1% support in three national polls, or two national polls and one poll from an early presidential primary state. Candidates must also sign a “loyalty pledge” to support the Republican nominee.
Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum say they’ve met the RNC’s criteria, though Trump and Christie have not signed the nominee loyalty pledge.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s campaign claimed Friday that he has qualified, but a Republican National Committee staffer familiar with the debate planning told CBS News that he has not officially made the debate yet.
Here’s what we know about what the candidates are doing to prepare for the debate.
Former President Donald Trump
Trump, who hasn’t confirmed whether he’ll participate, faces a deadline to surrender at the Fulton County Jail two days after the debate. He was indicted for the fourth time earlier this week in a sweeping racketeering case stemming from his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia.
Trump has suggested on several occasions that he’s not inclined to debate. On Thursday night, he wrote a post on social media acknowledging that many have asked whether he’ll debate. He noted his strong polling and added, “People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate?”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
The first debate could be most important for DeSantis, who has trailed Trump in early state polling and is weeks into a so-called reset of his campaign after a sluggish start. He has repeatedly referred to this first debate as a “flashpoint” in the race, when Republican voters will start paying attention to the primary.
He anticipates that other candidates will target him and is getting ready for “non-stop” attacks, according to people familiar with DeSantis’ debate strategy.
Brett O’Donnell, a veteran Republican debate coach, has been brought on to help with DeSantis’ campaign and has conducted weekly debate prep sessions with the governor. O’Donnell has years of experience in GOP debate prep, having helped Mitt Romney prepare in 2012, John McCain in 2008 and then-President George W. Bush in 2004.
DeSantis has been goading Trump to come to the debate, arguing nobody is “entitled” to the GOP nomination. While Trump has benefited from a large lead in early state polling and drew a large crowd when he dropped by the Iowa State Fair, Trump has spent a fraction of the time that DeSantis and others have spent in Iowa.
At the Iowa State Fair this month, DeSantis also criticized Trump for not signing the RNC’s pledge to support the GOP nominee. “You’ve got to be willing to stand up and support the team. If someone’s not willing to do that, that just shows you their campaign’s more about them than the broader public and the American people,” he told reporters.
A memo posted by a pro-DeSantis super PAC this week advised DeSantis to take a “sledge hammer” to Ramaswamy, and defend Trump “when Chris Christie attacks him.”
“The stakes are highest for DeSantis. If Nikki Haley or Tim Scott have a mediocre debate, ‘Oh well, they can get it the next time.’ If DeSantis has a terrible debate, that’s way more limiting,” one DeSantis donor said.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott
Scott plans to stick to his more positive brand on the debate stage and believes this will set him apart from the field. He has inched up in the polls, particularly in Iowa, and hewed to a message that criticizes Democrats while leaning into portraying his life as proof of the “American dream.”
Scott has spent more on ads than any Republican running for president, focusing on markets in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the first two GOP primaries will be held. His campaign will be airing a minute-long ad on Fox News right as the debate starts Wednesday, focused on Scott’s self-described “optimistic” and “hopeful” message.
He plans to be the “happy warrior” on stage, Scott told Breitbart News Radio. Asked by Fox News how Trump’s presence would affect his strategy, Scott replied, “It doesn’t change [it] much at all,” but he said he hopes Trump does attend.
“He’s a strong debater — without any question it will be entertaining… but the American people deserve to see every single one of us that qualifies for the debate stage on that debate stage talking about our vision for America,” Scott said.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley
Haley has been getting ready for the debate by talking with voters, her advisers say.
“She’s been preparing for the past six months. Unlike other candidates out there, she’s hosted dozens of town halls across South Carolina, across New Hampshire, across Iowa,” a close Haley adviser told CBS News.
Haley is expected to tout her foreign policy bona fides. As ambassador to the U.N. in the Trump administration, she likes to say she took the “Kick me sign” off America’s back.
Her campaign says “she wants to see everyone on that debate stage” because the American people have the right to hear from everyone — including her former boss.
“I know Trump very well, and I know exactly what it gets under his skin, and I know exactly what he does,” Haley told NBC News’ Ali Vitali.
She says she’s been focusing on her campaign and not on Trump, but she opined that if “he’s not on that stage, then he is taking the chance that everybody is going to talk about his record and why he is not on that stage.”
“I have never known him to be scared of anything. We’ll see if he is scared to be on the debate stage, but I would expect him to get up there,” Haley added.
Former Vice President Mike Pence
Pence was preparing for the debate stage for weeks before he qualified. His campaign began team sessions on Zoom about five weeks ago, according to a source on his campaign.
He met the requirements for the debate stage on Aug. 7, after reaching the polling and donor thresholds.
Greg Jacob, who served as a top lawyer to Pence during the Trump administration, has been leading the debate preparations for Pence at his campaign headquarters in Indiana. A team of five has held a handful of mock debates over the last two weeks, with one that included a stand-in for Trump.
If Trump does show up for the debate, it will pit him against his former vice president — who refused to try to overturn the 2020 election during Congress’ counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021, despite an alleged pressure campaign by Trump.
“I do hope he comes. I hope we have a fulsome debate. And I hope it’s the beginning of a vigorous debate about the future of the country,” Pence said in an address at the National Conference of State Legislatures Wednesday.
Pence has lagged Trump in polling so far but has been in headlines recently after Trump’s recent federal indictment in Washington, D.C., and state indictment in Georgia over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“The last three weeks, Pence has met the moment. He’s done what has been required of him as the attention has shifted focus on him,” a source on the campaign told CBS News.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
Christie, who ran for president in 2016, is eager to debate next week.
“The governor is the only person that’s going to be on the debate stage outside Trump — if he shows up —that has been on that stage before,” said Karl Rickett, a spokesperson for Christie. “That certainly gives him an advantage.”
Christie may be hoping to reprise his debate performances from 2016. In an interview earlier this summer with Robert Costa on CBS’s “Sunday Morning,” he noted most observers at the time thought he did “extraordinarily well.”
He was a bulldog in New Hampshire, tearing into Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during one debate, in which Rubio continued to repeat a line in his answers: “Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing; he knows exactly what he’s doing.”
Christie memorably mocked Rubio as a robotic candidate who just had one “memorized 25-second speech.” Rubio, in defending himself, uttered the line again, and Christie pounced. “There it is. There it is. The memorized 25-second speech,” Christie said.
The attack and response was widely viewed by Republicans as a devastating exchange for Rubio, though Rubio has long said such assessments do not reflect what his campaign was able to achieve.
This time, Christie is focused on Trump. “If you wanna be the man, Bob, you gotta beat the man,” he told Costa, referring to Trump.”I am absolutely ready for the first debate,” he continued. “I know who I am. I’m incredibly comfortable with who I am. And I know what I want to say. And I know who I have to say it to.”
Trump has wondered aloud if it “could be stupid” for him to participate in the debate, citing his strong lead so far. Christie is one of the few Republican candidates directly confronting Trump, calling him a “coward” if he doesn’t come to the debate. But Christie also told Costa, “If he doesn’t show up, it won’t matter. Because I’ll make sure that it is as if he is there.”
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy
Ramaswamy has a novel approach to the debate — so far, he has not done any formal debate preparation. The author and entrepreneur is known to make remarks about policy and campaign points off the cuff.
The campaign considered slowing Ramaswamy’s packed schedule to accommodate debate preparation. He has blitzed early-voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire, but ultimately decided to forgo traditional debate prep to keep up with his demanding schedule.
“He decided that what was most authentic to him and would be most productive would be for him to stick with his campaign schedule,” Tricia McLaughlin, a senior campaign adviser said. “I think it would be a disservice for him to over-prep and be too produced. I think you could lose some of that authenticity.”
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum
Burgum has not discussed his debate strategy, but the candidate insists campaigning makes for the best preparation.
“This is not about locking yourself in a closet and rehearsing lines,” Burgum told reporters at the Iowa State Fair last week. “I know people think performative politics is sort of the new norm, but I actually think that leadership begins with understanding the people that you’re working for.”
His campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment on how Trump’s presence would affect debate plans. But last week, Burgum suggested to reporters that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to debate if he won’t sign the pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.
Burgum took an atypical route to securing his microphone on the Milwaukee debate stage: his campaign mailed a $20 Visa or Mastercard to tens of thousands of people who sent $1 to his campaign in order to help him meet the RNC’s minimum donor requirements.
The businessman — who sold his software company to Microsoft in 2001 for over $1 billion — defended this ploy to CBS News.
“When nobody knows you and you’re getting started,” he said, “you put a product out there, and you offer it for a discount.”
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Don’t All Look at Once, But Mike Pence Might Be Growing a Backbone
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Donald Trump holds such a tight grip on the GOP that he has enjoyed the deference not only of his allies, but of most of his rivals, as well. But at least one of his competitors appears emboldened by his fourth and most recent indictment: Mike Pence, who was cartoonishly loyal as Trump’s vice president, is said to be eager for a showdown with his old boss. “It’s let’s-get-it-on time,” top Pence adviser Marc Short told Politico. “We’ve been waiting for this for a while.”
How sturdy is this spine that Pence has allegedly grown? That remains to be seen. His previous, highly-publicized shows of audacity weren’t exactly symmetrical to the political abuse Trump has subjected him to— and the talk he and his team have been doing recently qualifies as “tough” only in the loosest definition of the word. But it’s more than some of his fellow 2024 hopefuls have been able to muster.
Ron DeSantis—who is polling a distant second behind Trump, and has been on the receiving end of his most impassioned vitriol—reacted to the former president’s indictment with the usual nonsense about Trump being the victim of a political prosecution. “I think it’s an example of this criminalization of politics,” the Florida governor claimed. (That’s in keeping with his campaign’s curious debate strategy, as reported by the New York Times Thursday, to “defend Donald Trump.”) Vivek Ramaswamy, who is nipping at DeSantis’s heels, chimed in with some drivel of his own. “As someone who’s running for President against Trump,” he said, “I’d volunteer to write the amicus brief to the court myself: prosecutors should not be deciding U.S. presidential elections.” That, of course, is not at all what’s happening. But don’t tell that to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who has tried to position himself as the most unifying of this rag-tag bunch of Republican aspirants, but has barely made a blip in the polls: “We see the legal system being weaponized against political opponents,” Scott told reporters at the Iowa State Fair. “That is un-American and unacceptable.”
Compared to all that, Pence’s boilerplate “no one’s above the law” statement almost sounds assertive.
It isn’t, of course. This new, bold Pence still hasn’t gone to the lengths Chris Christie, Will Hurd, and Asa Hutchinson have (though Christie did say he viewed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s decision to prosecute the former president as “unnecessary,” given his earlier federal indictment by Jack Smith on similar charges). But those candidates are running specifically as anti-Trump Republicans, and none have made much of an impression on the polls so far (though Christie did pull ahead of DeSantis in New Hampshire in one Emerson College survey). To defy Trump even a little would, for Pence, constitute something of a shift in his political identity.
Which is probably for the best. That identity—as Trump’s top toady—has the former vice president averaging just over five percent in polls, not much better than Nikki Haley, who has spent her campaign trying to walk a similar tightrope as Pence: running against Trump without upsetting him or his movement too much. That might keep them from getting some dopey nickname hurled at them on Truth Social. But it does nothing to rationalize the existence of their campaigns, let alone give them a real shot at besting Trump.
Is this actually “let’s-get-it-on time” for Pence? We’ll see. But if not now, as Trump prepares for his fourth arraignment in as many months, it’s hard to imagine it ever will be.
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Eric Lutz
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Fox News’ Debate Could Put Trump’s GOP Opponents in a “Minefield,” Moderator Martha MacCallum Says
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On August 23, candidates for the Republican presidential nomination will gather for the first time together on the debate stage in Milwaukee. One thing they have in common: They’re all being crushed in the polls by Donald Trump, the front-runner who may not even show up. Regardless, the former president will loom large over the Fox News–hosted event—particularly when it comes to the multiple criminal indictments he is facing. “It will absolutely be incumbent upon them to address [Trump’s criminal charges],” Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, who is co-moderating the debate along with Bret Baier, says of the other Republican candidates. “Voters need to hear how they see it, and the option that they’re trying to provide. It’s very tricky territory for these candidates. They know that well,” MacCallum says. “It’s kind of a minefield.”
Eight candidates have thus far met the Republican National Committee’s qualifications for a spot on the debate stage—Trump, Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie, Doug Burgum, and Mike Pence—but none besides Trump have really gained traction. It’s particularly challenging to do at a time when the former president is dominating not only the polls, but, with his myriad charges, the news. “He’s sort of sucking all the oxygen out of the room,” says MacCallum, who sees the debate as an “important starting point” for those in the rest of the field to distinguish themselves. “This is a very high-stakes moment for them, and not everybody will really survive the process deeper than perhaps Iowa,” says MacCallum.
Debates have often been an opportunity for candidates to demonstrate their differences on policy, but at this point in the GOP primary, cultural issues such as LGBTQ+ rights and school curricula have commanded the conversation. MacCallum says she thinks such cultural issues “will certainly come up on the debate stage,” but “when you look at what people care about, it’s not high on the list,” compared to foreign policy and the economy. Candidates’ answers on abortion are another detail that she thinks voters will be paying close attention to.
Undeniably though, how candidates handle questions about Trump—who many have been unwilling or reluctant to criticize—will be top of mind for many viewers. “The goal at this moment is for them to get through Trump,” says MacCallum. “They have to define themselves in a way that makes them stand out with voters and also contrast themselves to the alternative, which is the former president. So it’s very tricky—he has a lot of support out there, we see that in the numbers.” What’s less clear is “what the impact will be of these court dates that he has that are just stacked up like planes waiting to take off at JFK.”
Speaking of planes, it’s easy to picture a scenario where the public is watching Trump’s on the tarmac on the afternoon of the debate, waiting to see whether he’ll show up or not. While his calculus could be evolving due to his worsened legal exposure, he’s been vocal about considering skipping the event, questioning the point of debating when he’s so far ahead of everyone else in the polls and publicly attacking Fox News for not giving him enough coverage and promoting DeSantis. Executives from Fox are said to be scrambling to convince him to participate, including Fox News president Jay Wallace and CEO Suzanne Scott, who reportedly appealed to him during a recent private dinner at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Network personalities, meanwhile, have been making their own appeals on air.
“Certainly we would like for him to be there,” says MacCallum, “and I think that the American people deserve an opportunity to watch the former president against the people who are his contenders. Yes, at this moment, most of them are far behind him in the polls. But that’s just a moment in time, and that can change if he is not there.”
(Complicating all of this: The RNC has reportedly told Trumpworld that he needs to make a final decision at least 48 hours in advance for security and logistics reasons. Further, Trump last week said he won’t sign the RNC’s loyalty pledge to support the eventual GOP presidential nominee, which is required of all candidates.)
I asked MacCallum whether she thinks candidates’ views on the 2020 election will be a focal point in 2024 races; just last week, DeSantis made news by merely stating the obvious fact that Joe Biden is the president and Trump lost the election. “I think there’s a lot of desire to look forward. That being said, these trials and issues push that question into this forum, and it has to be dealt with and addressed,” said MacCallum. “I think relitigating the outcome is not really where most people are focused at this point.” I noted that Trump has spent the past three years relitigating the outcome, an effort at the heart of his latest indictment. “Absolutely,” said MacCallum. “They all know that they’re gonna have to be clear on where they stand on it.”
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Charlotte Klein
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The GOP Primary Is a Field of Broken Dreams
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People near me at the Iowa State Fair were frantic. “Do you see him yet?” they panted. “Do you think he’ll come out into the crowd to talk?” When the presence of Secret Service officers made it clear that former President Donald Trump would appear at the Steer ’N Stein restaurant on the Grand Concourse, fairgoers formed a line whose end was out of sight.
Not all of them could squeeze into the restaurant, so they filled the street outside, one giant blob of eager, sweating Iowans. When the former president finally appeared, the scrum was so dense that they could barely make out his silhouette through the restaurant’s open side. “You know, the other candidates came here, and they had like six people,” Trump’s giddy voice said through the speakers above us. The audience responded with hoots and cheers.
One of the few rules of American politics to have withstood the weirdness of these past tumultuous years is that anyone who wants to be president of the United States must endure both the many splendors and the equally many ritual humiliations of the Iowa State Fair. It is an essential audition, at least for the GOP. (The Democratic Party has recently shuffled the order of its primary season, demoting the Iowa caucus from its first-in-the-nation status.)
If a Republican candidate, drenched in sweat and stuffed with fried butter, can pique the interest of Iowa’s choosy voters, then that candidate has a real shot in the caucuses and, perhaps, the White House. Sometimes, a long-shot outsider can work the crowds and gain an unexpected edge, as Rick Santorum did in 2012, and Ted Cruz did in 2016.
So the fair is a place to charm and be charmed. Early on in the weekend, it seemed to be working its magic.
“He’s really very engaging,” Shirley Burgess, from Des Moines, said of Mike Pence. “I thought he delivers a much clearer message in person than what I’m getting from him on TV.” The former vice president had just wrapped one of several “Fair-Side Chats” hosted by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds. This was a new feature at the fair, at which the governor asks the candidates such hard-hitting questions as “What’s your favorite walkout song?”
The night before, Pence had been heckled by a man who asked how he was doing “after Tucker Carlson ruined your career.” Another said, “I’m glad they didn’t hang you!”
But on Friday morning, Pence drew a respectful crowd for his conversation with Reynolds at J.R.’s Southpork Ranch. Attendees asked him polite questions, and half a dozen people personally thanked him for his “integrity” when Trump was trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Pence had company, however. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy also attracted crowds at the Pork Ranch and at the Des Moines Register’s Soapbox venue. Most of the undecided Iowans who attended told me that they’d supported Trump in 2016 and in 2020. These voters appreciated his service, they said, but after eight years of idiotic rants on social media, baseless but relentless assertions of election fraud, and a string of criminal indictments, they were hankering for some new energy. You know, a leader without so much baggage, they told me; someone more … classy.
“Everything out of his mouth is like, ‘Shut up, Donald,’” Charles Dunlap, a two-time Trump voter from Johnston, Iowa, told me. He was eager to hear from Ramaswamy and Haley, people he believed would “institute similar policies” to Trump’s—just without the drama.
But the intimate enchantment of the fair—the promise of thoughtful, measured consideration—dissipated around 1 p.m. Saturday, when the former president arrived. What very quickly became clear was that the Trump-exhausted, change-minded Iowans I’d met that morning were in the minority. Most folks? They still love Trump.
The former president skipped possible speaking slots at the Soapbox and with Reynolds (because of his strange beef with the governor), but showed up to mingle with his people. They packed into every fair establishment where the president might conceivably speak. Because his event wasn’t on any official schedule, everyone was kept guessing. Parts of the fairground came to a standstill. People who just wanted to slurp lemonade and admire the prize-winning steers were annoyed. “Why did we have to come on the day that all the politicians are here?” a man pushing a stroller through the throng asked his wife. (Almost every Iowan, for the record, has at one point uttered the phrase.)
Given his commanding lead in the GOP primary polling, it’s not so shocking that Trump’s presence would create such fervor. But seeing it, feeling it, was different. By contrast, the crowds that had gathered for the other Republican candidates didn’t seem impressive at all. Suddenly, the entire GOP primary contest felt painfully futile, pathetic even. Why are they even doing this? For the also-rans—basically, the rest of the field already—was suffering the abuses of the campaign trail worth even the best-case scenario of being anointed Trump’s running mate?
On Saturday, while Pence stood in the sun flipping pork burgers, people in the crowd whispered about him. “Look at him sweat,” someone behind me said. “He’s a dweeb, and so is DeSantis,” a young man from Cedar Rapids named Jacob, who declined to give his last name, told me. “You just want to take their lunch money. It’s instinct.” Ramaswamy, whose big personality has charmed many Republicans, apparently felt the need to put on a non-dweeb showing after his interview with the governor, and rapped confidently to the Eminem song “Lose Yourself.” A sea of silver-haired onlookers, who found themselves trapped near the front of the stage, were obliged to awkwardly bob along.
DeSantis, more than anyone else, suffered at the fair. While he spoke with Reynolds, a plane flew in circles overhead, carrying a long sign that read Be likable, Ron! DeSantis pretended not to notice it. When the Florida governor took his turn in the Pork Tent, Trump supporters gathered behind his photo op, wearing green-and-yellow trucker hats handed out by the Trump campaign. They chanted and yelled insults as DeSantis and his wife flipped burgers.
And when Trump finally arrived on Saturday afternoon, he brought with him a posse of Florida lawmakers who had endorsed him over DeSantis. (Representative Matt Gaetz warmed up the crowd by saying that he’d grilled burgers well done at the Pork Tent, but “the most done you can be is Ron DeSantis.”) Will the humiliation pay off in the end? DeSantis’s campaign has to hope so. At least in Iowa, the Florida governor is running somewhat closer to Trump than he is nationally.
Earlier in the day, I’d interviewed Matt Wells, a DeSantis supporter and a county chair from Washington, Iowa, who had been following the candidate around the fair all morning. Trump’s people “don’t really know what they’re doing; it’s all an emotional thing,” he told me. Wells worked for Ted Cruz’s campaign in 2016. They’d had a strong ground game then, as DeSantis does now, he said. “Trump,” Wells added, “doesn’t have any ground game here.”
Cruz may have won Iowa, but he quite memorably did not go on to win the 2016 election. I was about to bring up this fact when someone near us gasped. A dozen fingers pointed toward the sky, and people began to scream with excitement. There, in the bright-blue ocean above us, was a plane with TRUMP emblazoned on its side heading for the nearby airport. Someone whispered, “Did I tell you that I shook his hand twice?” The clamor grew louder.
Trump would be here soon. The man, the myth, had landed.
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Elaine Godfrey
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Mike Pence Expected To Go All-In on Anti-Abortion Stance in First GOP Debate
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Former Vice President Mike Pence has long signaled a strategy to run to the right of the GOP primary field on abortion and has loudly endorsed a federal ban. Even as abortion continues to be a major electoral loser at the state level for Republicans, Pence is vowing to put his competitors’ feet to the fire on the issue at the first Republican debate later this month.
“My former running mate, the governor of Florida, and others are suggesting that the Supreme Court returned the question of abortion to the states,” Pence said on Friday at the Iowa State Fair. “I truly do believe it’s vitally important that we seize the opportunity at the national level to advance protections for the right to life, and I’ll do so as president,” he added, promising that the issue “will be on the stage in Milwaukee.”
In June, Pence called on his fellow GOP presidential candidates to support a 15-week federal abortion ban. His political organization, Advancing American Freedom, has gone even further, endorsing a six-week federal ban and even a fetal personhood law, which would make practically all abortions illegal.
Though former President Donald Trump appointed the three justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 and consistently describes himself as the “most pro-life president” in U.S. history, he came to believe a federal abortion ban was a political loser after the 2022 midterms, when Republicans turned in a lackluster performance.
In June, he attacked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who signed a six-week abortion ban in his home state in April. “Many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh” Trump said in an interview with The Messenger.
DeSantis shot back, saying the bill “was the right thing to do.” Yet the Florida governor has also been reluctant to embrace the anti-abortion movement’s most radical proposals on the national stage. In a late July interview with Megyn Kelly, the Florida Governor said he felt abortion was best left up to the states, earning him a harsh rebuke from the influential anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America, which called his comments “unacceptable.”
This internal GOP squabbling signals the difficulty that Republican candidates will face in 2024, as the anti-abortion movement has been resoundingly defeated at the ballot box in the year since Dobbs. The latest blow came last week, when Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected a referendum that would have made it harder to amend the state’s constitution. The vote was widely seen as an attempt by Republicans to make it more difficult to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution, which will be on the ballot in November 2024.
Trump has long suggested that he’ll skip the first debate, citing his gargantuan lead over the primary field. But Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman reported last week that Trump’s deepening legal troubles might propel him onto the stage in Milwaukee on August 23.
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Jack McCordick
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‘Traitor’: Trump-Lovin’ Hecklers Go After Mike Pence At Iowa State Fair
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Former Vice President Mike Pence kept it moving as a number of Trump supporters heckled him at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday.
Pence, in a video shared by Iowa Starting Line, was making his way to a radio interview at the fairgrounds when a group of people wearing “Team Trump” shirts yelled in his direction.
“MAGA everyday, Pence is a traitor,” one woman shouted as former President Donald Trump’s VP walked past.
“Anybody that says he has a higher power, uses those words, he is not a Christian when you say ‘higher power.’ We don’t buy it as believers, Pence. You are far from a Christian, far from a believer.”
The woman later told reporters that Trump is the guy who is “going to sweep up” corruption, according to a video shared by Camaron Stevenson, founding editor of The Copper Courier.
“I’m gonna vote for the guy with the most impeachments and the most indictments because that guy, he knows where all the corruption is and this time it’s like ‘clean the house,’” the woman declared.
One of the supporters told Iowa Starting Line that they were part of a Trump volunteer group at the fairgrounds.
The heckling marked the second time in recent days that Trump supporters went after Pence on the campaign trail.
Pro-Trump hecklers shouted “that’s a traitor,” “you’re a sellout” and “why didn’t you uphold the Constitution, sir?” before Pence fired back before an event in New Hampshire last week.
“I upheld the Constitution,” he told the heckler before adding “read it,” in what marked another defense of his decision to certify the results of the 2020 election.
Other fairgoers didn’t shy away from bringing up the events of Jan. 6, 2021, too, as one person asked Pence “why did you commit treason” at an event hosted by the Des Moines Register.
“It’s a fair question, look, come on people, it’s why I came,” Pence interjected over a booing crowd.
Pence went on to reflect on his oath of office before recommending the man read Article II of the Constitution.
“Look, there’s almost no idea more unAmerican than the notion that any one person can pick the American president,” he said.
“The American presidency belongs to the American people.”
Pence’s campaign recently announced that he met the donor threshold for the first GOP debate later this month although it remains unclear whether Trump will take part in the event.
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Pence campaign meets donor threshold to make first primary debate | CNN Politics
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CNN
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Former Vice President Mike Pence has reached the donor threshold to qualify for the first GOP presidential debate later this month in Milwaukee, an aide told CNN on Monday.
The Republican National Committee set a requirement of 40,000 unique donors minimum to qualify for the first debate, in addition to polling requirements and a commitment to support the eventual GOP nominee. Pence had already met the polling criteria to make the stage.
Fox News first reported on Pence reaching the threshold.
As CNN has reported, seven other candidates have met the polling threshold and say they’ve also reached the fundraising requirements for the August debate: Former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson also meets the polling threshold for inclusion in the debate following the release of a new national poll from Morning Consult on Tuesday, though his campaign has not yet said that it has met the fundraising requirement.
While some candidates offered gift cards or a percentage of the money raised to appeal for donations, Pence and his team relied on direct mail and asking for just $1.
Trump, the current front-runner who was federally indicted in the special counsel’s 2020 election interference probe last week, has not yet committed to participating in the debate. If Trump attends, Pence would be sharing a debate stage with his former running mate and boss.
“Sometimes people ask me what it would be like to debate Donald Trump and I tell people I’ve debated Donald Trump a thousand times. Never with cameras on,” Pence told reporters last week in New Hampshire.
Pence – who often says he’s “well-known” but not “known well” – added that being on the debate stage will allow voters to “take a fresh look” at him.
The former vice president jumped into the race in June and has cast himself as a Reagan conservative. He has called for cuts to government spending, the tax cuts enacted under the Trump administration to be made permanent, increased military spending and domestic energy production, and continued US support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. He’s also been outspoken against abortion and gender-affirming treatment for minors.
Pence’s path to the nomination, however, is complicated by how voters in his party view his handling of January 6, 2021. While some Republicans have thanked Pence for his actions that day, many Trump supporters remain convinced that Pence could have stopped Congress’ certification of the election results.
In a recent interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Pence said Trump “was wrong then, and he’s wrong now” that he – then the vice president presiding over Congress’ count of the Electoral College vote – had a right to reject the election result.
“The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution, but I kept my oath and I always will. And I’m running for president in part because I think anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be President of the United States,” he said.
Pence received more than 7,200 donations last Wednesday, the day after Trump was indicted on federal charges, according to his campaign.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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Political Strategist Says Trump’s Pence Outburst Exposes What He’s Afraid Of
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Democratic strategist Paul Begala says Donald Trump’s recent outburst at Mike Pence on social media suggests he’s afraid of what the former vice president could say about him under oath.
Begala, a CNN commentator, pointed to “an old saying” he learned from one of his mentors: “A hit dog will holler.”
“And so when Trump is yelling at somebody, it’s because he’s afraid of them. He’s never criticized Pence before, because Pence is [polling at] like 2%. So why is he all of a sudden afraid of Mike Pence?” Begala said.
“I think, because, as now we know Trump said, he’s just ‘too honest.’”
Begala, who served as a chief strategist on Bill Clinton’s winning 1992 presidential campaign, said he believed Pence would testify against Trump in his election conspiracy trial.
“Pence can tell the truth,” he added. “And I think that’s what has Trump so scared, and that’s why he’s attacking him.”
Begala was weighing in on a Saturday Truth Social post from Trump accusing Pence of going to “the Dark Side” after speaking out against Trump following the latest indictment against the former president.
Trump’s post on Truth Social about Mike Pence. Donald Trump / Truth Social
Trump was charged with four federal felonies last week in connection to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Some of the evidence in the indictment appeared to come directly from Pence, whose “contemporaneous notes” of conversations he had with Trump were cited in the 45-page document.
According to the indictment, Trump phoned Pence on Jan. 1, 2021, and told him he was being “too honest” for refusing to go along with his scheme to stay in power.
Pence has been critical of Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, during which Trump supporters called for Pence to be hanged because he wouldn’t acquiesce to the then-president’s demands.
Pence has ratcheted up his rhetoric since the indictment, accusing Trump and his “gaggle of crackpot lawyers” of pressuring him to “literally reject” electoral votes for President Joe Biden.
Pence is running against Trump for president in 2024. According to FiveThirtyEight, Pence sits at about 5% on average in the polls, compared to about 53% for Trump.
Trump has been indicted three times this year. The first was related to an alleged hush money scheme to silence an adult film star before the 2016 election, and the second was in connection to his handling of classified documents after leaving office. He faces trial in the first two cases next year.
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Pence disputes Trump team’s characterization of lead-up to Jan. 6
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Pence disputes Trump team’s characterization of lead-up to Jan. 6 – CBS News
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8/6: Face The Nation
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8/6: Face The Nation – CBS News
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Trump Lawyer: Mike Pence Will Be “One of Our Best Witnesses”
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In the week since former president Donald Trump was hit with his third criminal indictment, which charges him in connection with his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, his lawyers haven’t been shy about broadcasting his legal strategy. Apparently, Trump’s defense hinges on cooperation from former Vice President Mike Pence. In a Sunday interview with ABC’s The Week, Trump lawyer John Lauro made the bizarre claim that Pence, whom Capitol rioters vowed to hang on January 6, will “be one of our best witnesses” when Trump goes to trial.
Lauro, who was brought onto the former president’s defense team last month, added that he’d read Pence’s recent memoir, So Help Me God, “very carefully,” and if Pence “testifies consistent with his book, then President Trump will be acquitted.”
“I cannot wait until I have the opportunity to cross-examine Mr. Pence, because what he will do is completely eliminate any doubt that Mr. Trump—President Trump—firmly believed that the election irregularities had led to inappropriate results,” Lauro said.
The question of whether Trump truly believed the election was stolen is likely to become a major theme of the trial. Responding to Lauro’s claims, former U.S. Attorney Gene Rossi told Newsweek Sunday that Pence would likely be a devastating witness for Trump on that subject. “The conversations that Pence had with Trump show a guilty mind. When the president says, ‘You are too honest,’ that is code for ‘I know I am asking you to do something illegal,’” he said.
The conversation Rossi was referring to, which is contained in special counsel Jack Smith’s 45-page indictment, was a January 1, 2021 phone call in which Pence allegedly told Trump he felt he did not have constitutional authority to reject or return electoral votes to the states on January 6. In response, according to the document, Trump said, “You’re too honest.”
For his part, the former vice president responded to Trump’s latest indictment by tweeting that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.” On Wednesday, Pence further criticized the former president for surrounding himself after the 2020 election with “crackpot lawyers” who said only what his “itching ears” wanted to hear.
Lauro’s ABC appearance was just one of multiple interviews he gave Sunday in which he seemed to outline the former president’s legal strategy. In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Lauro admitted that Trump may have committed a “technical violation of the Constitution,” but argued that his actions were not a violation of criminal law. Later on the show, Maryland Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the January 6 Committee, called Lauro’s comments “deranged.”
“First of all, a technical violation of the Constitution is a violation of the Constitution. The Constitution in six different places opposes insurrection,” he said, adding that Trump “conspired to defraud the American people out of our right to an honest election by substituting the real legal process we have under federal and state law with counterfeit electors.”
And still, Trump’s defense insisted: in a third Sunday interview, this one with CNN’s Dana Bash, Lauro outlined how Trump’s free speech defense is likely to unfold. Attempting to draw a distinction between “asking” and “directing,” Lauro argued that Trump pressuring Pence to block the election certification was done in an “aspirational” way.
“What President Trump did not do is direct Vice President Pence to do anything,” Lauro argued. “He asked him in an aspirational way. Asking is covered by the First Amendment.” Later in the interview, Lauro argued that the “transition of power” from Trump to President Joe Biden “was certainly peaceful.”
“Did you see what happened on January 6?” an awestruck Bash responded.
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Jack McCordick
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Trump lawyer says Pence will be star witness for defense, while Pence says Trump team asked him to reject votes ‘outright’
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Former President Donald Trump speaks as the keynote speaker at the 56th Annual Silver Elephant Dinner hosted by the South Carolina Republican Party on August 5, 2023 in Columbia, South Carolina.
Melissa Sue Gerrits | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump‘s attorney John Lauro said Sunday that he believes former Vice President Mike Pence will be one of the defense’s “best witnesses” in the federal case over Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump was indicted on four federal felony charges Tuesday that centered on his supposed attempts to discount legitimate votes in the 2020 presidential race and subvert the election itself. The indictment describes how Trump and his lawyers pressured Pence to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by refusing to certify the results in the Senate on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence refused and had to be evacuated from the Senate chamber when members of the Jan. 6 mob called for him to be hung.
The former president is facing additional federal charges in connection with a probe centered on his retention of classified documents after leaving office in 2021. He was also charged by Manhattan prosecutors with falsifying business records related to hush money payments to women who say they had extramarital affairs with him.
Pence has not been officially called to testify in the election case, but Lauro told ABC’s “This Week” he believes Pence’s testimony would help illustrate that the former president was not acting with criminal intent.
“I cannot wait until I have the opportunity to cross-examine Mr. Pence, because what he will do is completely eliminate any doubt that Mr. Trump, President Trump, firmly believed that the election irregularities had led to inappropriate results,” Lauro said Sunday.
Pence told CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that if he is ultimately asked to testify, he will follow the law.
Lauro added that Trump and his lawyers asked Pence to “pause the voting” to allow states time to audit votes, in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. Pence, who also spoke with CNN Sunday, said that was not the full story.
“Frankly, the day before January 6, if memory serves, they came back — his lawyers did — and said, ‘We want you to reject votes’ outright,” Pence said. “They were asking me to overturn the election. I had no right to overturn the election.”
“I don’t know what was in [Trump’s] heart, I don’t know what his intentions were, but I do know what he and his lawyers asked me to do. And it’s what no vice president in American history had ever done before, and frankly what no vice president or any one person in Washington should ever do again,” he added.
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Open: This is “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Aug. 6, 2023 – CBS News
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Transcript: Rep. Dean Phillips on
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The following is a transcript of an interview with Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota that aired on “Face the Nation” on Aug. 6, 2023.
MAJOR GARRETT: Welcome back, we turned out a Minnesota Democratic Congressman Dean Phillips, who might in fact be able to answer a question he’s given some energy to, are you going to run for president against Joe Biden?
REP. DEAN PHILLIPS: Well, Major, I have not decided yet. But I will tell you why I’m here. And I lost my dad in Vietnam in 1969. Lived with my great grandparents for two and a half years, and my mom was 24 and widowed. I was adopted when I was three by an extraordinary dad into a remarkable family. I know a little something about living on both sides of advantage. And I woke up the morning after the 2016 election, the one you just spoke about, saw fear in my daughter’s eyes, my two daughters. I recognized at that moment that millions of Americans have had that same fear for generations. And I promised them I would do something, I ran for Congress. And I ran a campaign that was about everybody being invited. That was my slogan. I listened to Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and I discovered that everybody wants the same thing, everybody. We want to be safe. We want to have security, both economic and otherwise, we want opportunity, and we want unity, serving our country, and Congress has been a joy.
I know you don’t hear that too often, it has been a joy. And I’ve discovered that everybody in the middle, the massive majority of Americans are sick of anger-tainment, telling us we’re more divided than we really are. They’re sick of members of Congress state houses attacking each other instead of attacking problems. They want their families back, their friendships back, their communities back, they want unity. And I want to give voice to them. And then secondly, I want to give voice to Democrats. I’m a lifelong passionate Democrat inspired by Hubert Humphrey and Martin Luther King. Democrats are telling me that they want, not a coronation, but they want a competition. The New York Times poll from this week shows 55% of Democratic voters want some alternatives to the current people in the primary. 83% of those under 30. Democrats under 30 want alternatives, and about 76% are independents. So I just want to make my case–
MAJOR GARRETT: When you’re going to decide? When are you going to decide?
REP. PHILLIPS: I think, well, let me get to my point. Okay. So if we don’t heed–
MAJOR GARRETT: I’ve given you some room.
REP. PHILLIPS: Yes, you have, if we don’t heed that call, shame on us. And the consequences, I believe, are going to be disastrous. So my call is to those who are well positioned, well prepared, have good character and competency, they know who they are, to jump in, because Democrats and the country need competition. It makes everything better. That’s my call to them right now.
MAJOR GARRETT: So if they don’t, you will?
REP. PHILLIPS: I’m not saying I will. I think I’m well positioned to be president to the United States–
MAJOR GARRETT: You do.
REP. PHILLIPS: I do not believe I’m well positioned to run for it right now. People who are should jump in because we need to meet the moment. The moment is now. That is what the country is asking.
MAJOR GARRETT: I gave you some running room. So let’s tighten up the answers if we can. Can President Biden beat Donald Trump?
REP. PHILLIPS: I think he can. But I think the only way to determine that, objectively, is to go through a process by the way before it’s too late. And I want to tell you this about President Biden, an amazing man, I love the man he is competent. He is honorable. His integrity, I believe is unvarnished, he has led this country through extraordinarily difficult times. And this is not about him. This is about listening to people, and I’m afraid in this bubble here in Washington, people get real tone deaf real fast, and we should be listening. That’s what this is about. It’s my call to action.
MAJOR GARRETT: Assess Robert F Kennedy Jr’s campaign.
REP. PHILLIPS: Well, first of all, I like competition. I’m pleased that people see an adequate competitor, not the one that I’m looking for. I don’t believe him to be a Democrat. (CROSS TALK) Let me say this– (CROSSTALK)I think there is something telling, I think he’s using a very similar playbook to a former president who did the same in the Republican Party just a little while ago. And I think we should be cautious of that. I also think that’s why we need alternatives. I don’t believe him to be a Democrat. I do believe though, that speech is good, more speech is even better. We need alternatives for the massive majority of the middle in America–
MAJOR GARRETT: Let me make sure I heard that correctly, you don’t believe Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a Democrat?
REP. PHILLIPS: Not-not from the positions he’s been taking no.
MAJOR GARRETT: Assess Cornell West. Do you have any anxiety about him running as a Green Party candidate?
REP. PHILLIPS: I do. Anybody who wants to turn the page and go to the future in this country should be worried about Cornell-Cornell West’s candidacy. Any third party entrance that would take votes from whoever is going to take on the likely nominee from the GOP and that’s probably Donald Trump. So I would ask Mr. West, I would ask others who are contemplating third party runs to please think about your legacy, think about the future and consolidate around entering a Democratic primary because that’s why we have primaries.
MAJOR GARRETT: I’m confused. Congressman, if there’s a conversation that you say needs to occur within the Democratic Party about an alternative to the sitting President of the United States, why isn’t the leading contender for that the sitting Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris?
REP. PHILLIPS: I think we have a- I think we live in an era of fear. What if I get out of line? What if I take on my party? I know the feeling this week, I–
[CROSSTALK]
MAJOR GARRETT: Is she not qualified?
REP. PHILLIPS: I think she’s absolutely qualified. In fact, I think she’s misportrayed. I think everybody in this country should take a little bit of time and sit with people, observe them, know them before you draw conclusions. I think she is more competent and able than many people give her credit for. The job of the Vice President is not an easy one.
MAJOR GARRETT: Would she, in your mind, be the heir apparent if for some reason the President of the United States were not to seek the nomination in 2024?
REP. PHILLIPS: I’m glad you asked the question. And my answer is really simple: competition. As many people as humanly possible with the talent, the time, the energy, the ethics to enter a primary should do it. We have 12 Republicans as options for Republican primary voters. Right now, we only have three in the Democratic side. I believe in competition. We’re the Democratic Party. Democracy means the freedom to make choices, and we don’t have many of them.
MAJOR GARRETT: Let me ask you a historical question. You’ve invoked the names of many Minnesota Democrats, let me invoke the name of another. Eugene McCarthy ran in 1968, against a well positioned president with a substantial record of accomplishment for Democratic Party agenda items. He said the reason he had to run was because of the overwhelming issue of Vietnam, that it had to be addressed. Dean Phillips, what’s the Vietnam of this election?
REP. PHILLIPS: The Vietnam of this election? I think everybody knows. And it’s about turning the page to the future. That is the Vietnam of right now. That’s the quagmire in which we find ourselves. Mr. Hurd, who you just had on the show, if you could see the green room moments ago, the camaraderie between Democrats and Republicans who all want the same thing, was represented right there. And I want to remind the American people, that’s the Vietnam of right now. The quagmire in which we find ourselves, we will not get out of from a single leader. If everybody takes a pause, starts reaching out their hands to one another again, starts electing and selecting people of competency and good character, we’re gonna get out of this and I’m optimistic.
MAJOR GARRETT: Dean Phillips, Congressman from Minnesota, Democrat, keep in touch.
REP. PHILLIPS:Thank you, Major.
MAJOR GARRETT: We’ll be back in just a moment.
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