Jay Weber Show transcript 8-21-23
Donald Trump is sitting it out. Unless there’s some dramatic new announcement, it looks like Donald trump is going to skip the debate and get his media supporters run a pre-taped interview that he’s done with Tucker Carlson as ‘counter programming’.
It's an overt move to try to ‘stick it to Fox’, more than anything.
Fox execs and RNC leaders have been lobbying trump to participate for months- and to do an interview with the high-profile person who fox just fired-and orchestrate it out- so that it runs at the same time the debate is going on- is a Trumpian ‘bleep you’ to fox news and the so-called ‘establishment’ republicans.
And I wondered earlier whether -if Ron DeSantis has a bad debate and falters- whether this primary isn’t ‘already over’? As trump and his loyalists want to claim.
And the answer is: no, it isn’t...because we still have five or six months before the voting even starts...so of course the primary’s not over ‘til it’s over’...
But-the more focused question is: is there anything that any of these other candidates can do to ‘take’ the nomination away from Donald Trump?
And if DeSantis falters as the biggest target on Wednesday’s debate stage-the answer to that question could be, “no. The only way Trump loses the nomination is if by some action or series of events-trump gives it away’.
What I mean is- the conventional political wisdom is: to win-one of these people has to ‘step up and take the nomination from him’...
Well, no one’s ‘taking’ this from Trump.
If he’s not the nominee in May-it’ll be because -thru some actions or series of events he-will have given it away...
It could be …. oh.... legal cases going badly and/or leading to a conviction. It could be that he finally goes way too far in reacting to something and offends the nation at some deeper level. Or maybe he simply drops out with health or legal problems.
Anything can happen-but it’s certainly starting to look like no one else whose running can ‘take this from him’.
It’s not like Rick Scott can go on a good run of media attention...and oop.... now Scott has popped into the lead...
This isn’t a primary race that fits into any normal pattern. And while you’ve heard the latest negative stats that suggest trump cannot win the general election-
There’s always a chance that the democrats attack really do turn him into a martyr and/or a proxy for traditional America-and wind up putting him right back in the white house.
Biden’s standing with the American people is just bad. His approval rating is at 40 percent. It’s at 35 percent with the economy.
He’s got a family corruption scandal against him that even some liberals are starting to demand more answers on...
And worst of all-he’s a mentally and physically frail 80-year-old who 70 percent of the country says ‘shouldn’t be president’ again.
The other thing that needs to be noted: if it’s Trump v Biden. If Americans view the race as ‘two turds in the punch bowl, pick one’.... It’ll be a close race and either one could win.
But if one of the parties or the other- shocks the country by swapping out their nominee for someone younger and more likeable or compelling- well then, all bets are off and the ‘turd remaining in the punchbowl’ is in trouble.
If it’s Biden against a different GOP nominee-he’s in trouble.
But also-if its’ trump against any other dem nominee other than maybe Kammy- he’s in trouble. Even if most of us are loath to admit it: Gavin Newsome can’t beat trump. Grethen Whitmer can’t beat trump. Etc.
Yeah, they could: because they are new, largely unknown to the American voter, and they’re ‘not trump or Biden’. Instead, they’d be representing ‘what’s next’...how to move the country forward and out of this impossible mess that both parties seem to find themselves in.
photo credit: Getty Images
CLICK HERE: Wisconsin GOP Chairman Brian Schimming joined us to preview the "Trump-less" debate