Editors’ Blog

There’s a lot of commotion to come as we wait for the details of the indictment and watch Donald Trump’s arraignment, and the circus around it, unfold over the next 24 hours, but I wanted to bring your attention to a small yet concerning trend I’ve noticed taking shape in the past week as Republicans continue to downplay the Jan. 6 insurrection.

We’re standing up a live blog of events leading up to and through tomorrow. So we’ll have you covered on all the developments. But we’ll do it a bit differently. There’s a strong Stations-of-the-Cross vibe to a lot of the coverage: Trump making his doleful march to meet justice or rather the HOAX WITCH HUNT in New York City, the humble sacrifice he makes of himself on behalf of real America. And we’ll capture some of that, with more irony and implicit mockery one would imagine. But we’ll try to focus also on the internals of the case, the more interesting nonsense the spectacle generates, how much the conventional press gets taken in by and how much the GOP — in spite of all the confident predictions last fall — manages to re-pledge its allegiance to Trump as steadfastly as it did in 2016, 2019 and 2020. It is also in our neck of the woods. So we’ll deploy our New York City knowledge to give you some more of that flavor.

This Sean Hannity clip is getting huge play today. (You can see it below the fold.) Hannity tells Trump during their interview, I can’t imagine you’d ever say bring me those documents we took from the White House. Trump responds no I can totally do that, I would do that. Hannity says, okay let’s move on, but Trump persists. It’s Hannity at his journalist-as-defense counsel best.

Trumpers are going full stations of the cross with Trump’s doleful procession into Jerusalem New York City …

It seems like the whole political world is waking up to the reality that absent some dramatic and unlikely new development, the 2024 GOP primary isn’t just Donald Trump’s to lose, it’s very difficult to come up with a scenario in which he does lose. One new poll illustrates numerically what is clear enough from the news in front of us. In a head-to-head race, A Yahoo/Yougov poll showed Donald Trump jumping to a 26-point lead over Ron DeSantis (57%–31%) from a 8-point lead less than two weeks ago. As recently as February, it was a 4-point lead. In a ten-candidate field — the more real-world scenario — Trump holds 52% support while DeSantis falls to 21%.

I saw in a press report earlier that while Republicans are stuck in a Soros, Soros, Soros rage fugue Democrats are a mix of giddy and anxious. I’ll assume some version of that is correct. I certainly see a lot of giddiness and sundry booyahs! and similar comments. Those are totally understandable. Donald Trump has made a lifetime of skating. He’s run roughshod over the whole country for seven-plus years and skated on every bit of wrongdoing. So of course people are excited, satisfied, pumped and relieved that finally he’s hit a bump in the road.

But there’s also that note of anxiety.

Yesterday we noted the interesting and hilarious fact that Disney appears to have outmaneuvered and outwitted Ron DeSantis’s effort to strip the company of its quasi-governmental powers over the huge parcel of land that makes up Disney World as payback for the company’s support of gay rights. When we heard the story yesterday it may have sounded like the company just pulled off some last-minute switcheroo when for a minute the folks in Tallahassee took their eye off the ball. But that’s not quite right. It was an effort that took place in plain sight over almost a year.

I was scheduled to go on Ari Melber’s show yesterday afternoon to talk about the Dominion lawsuit. Had to bone up on the latest developments. Then about fifteen minutes before we were set to go on air the indictment story broke. So obviously the topic changed. I got to speak about a few things. But this is the thing (video after the jump) I was most interested in saying.

Special Breaking edition of the Josh Marshall Podcast coming out this evening. Not sure precisely when but this evening.

About to talk on MSNBC about the indictment. Just after 6pm.