Former U.S. president and 2024 Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump arrives to speak during a town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 10.KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/Getty Images
So, after all of Donald Trump’s indictments, “word vomit,” and calls to “terminate” the U.S. Constitution, there is finally some good news for those concerned about the former and possibly future president’s plans if he retakes the White House.
No, it’s not that Mr. Trump will lose Monday’s Republican presidential caucuses in Iowa. It would take a miracle for either of his main challengers for the GOP nomination – Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley – to beat him in the opening contest of the primary season.
Wednesday night’s CNN debate between Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley is not likely to have moved the needle in Iowa, where Mr. Trump has held a lead in the most recent polls of more than 30 percentage points over each of his closest rivals. Mr. Trump emerged virtually unscathed from the debate as his challengers lit into each other with abandon, as if they had already given up on winning over the ex-president’s supporters.
Rather, the good news – and we’ll take any we can get these days – is that Mr. Trump promises not to be a dictator if he wins the 2024 election. There had been some doubt about this after he began telling the whole world that, well, he would be a dictator on “day one” of his next term in office. But it turns out you have nothing to worry about.
“I’m not going to be a dictator,” Mr. Trump told a Wednesday night Fox News town hall in Iowa held at the same time that Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley were debating each other on CNN. “I’m going to manage like we did. We were so successful that the country was coming together. It was actually coming together. It was a beautiful thing to see.”
I know that is how you all remember Mr. Trump’s first term in office: A blissful era of harmony among Americans thanks to the 45th president’s enlightened leadership, humility and self-sacrifice. It was never about him, after all. He was all give, and never take. No president since Abraham Lincoln did as much to form a more perfect union.
Alas, there are still a few obstacles standing in the way of a second Trump presidency.
Ms. Haley has been surging in the polls in New Hampshire, where undeclared electors (and not just registered Republicans) can vote in the Jan. 23 GOP primary. A CNN poll this week had the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador (yes, under Mr. Trump) trailing him by only seven percentage points. And that was before former New Jersey governor Chris Christie dropped out of the GOP race. Most of his supporters are now expected to back Ms. Haley.
If Ms. Haley finishes second in Iowa and comes close to beating or beats Mr. Trump in New Hampshire, the GOP race could be blown wide open. The next state to hold its GOP primary after New Hampshire is South Carolina, which is home turf for Ms. Haley.
Her main argument – that “chaos” follows Mr. Trump – may not be strong enough on its own to get his supporters to change their vote. But she can wave polls showing that she far outperforms Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis in a match-up against Democratic President Joe Biden.
Even if Mr. Trump wins South Carolina, the coast will not be clear for him. On Feb. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Mr. Trump’s appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that banned him from appearing on the ballot in that state’s GOP primary because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
At issue is whether Mr. Trump can be disqualified from running under the 14th amendment, which bans from public office anyone who, after having previously taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, has participated in an insurrection. Mr. Trump’s lawyers argue that the clause does not apply to a former president and that, even if it did, the Jan. 6 uprising was not an insurrection under the legal definition.
The Supreme Court is also likely to weigh in on whether Mr. Trump is immune from prosecution altogether for crimes he allegedly committed while president. He has been indicted on charges related to Jan. 6. But his lawyers this week argued in an appeals court that presidents can only be prosecuted after being impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted in the Senate. Mr. Trump was twice impeached but was acquitted in the Senate.
If Ms. Haley cannot beat Mr. Trump outright in the primaries, the Supreme Court (with its three Trump-appointed judges) might be the only thing standing between him and the White House.
He warns there would be “bedlam in the country” if the court ruled against him.
Happy 2024.
Konrad Yakabuski