Presidential Viability - Top 3 Takeaways – July 28th, 2023
- DeSantis said it out loud. You’ve thought it. He said it. Joe Biden is going to die. And no, he didn’t suggest it in the Captain Obvious context in which one day we all will. Ron DeSantis in an Outkick exclusive interview with Clay Travis said it in a context which suggests it’ll be soon. Quoting Ron... He’s already passed normal life expectancy, so it’s not like that would be an unforeseen thing. That’s true. Especially when we’re talking about someone who’s already living on the long end of the curve and frequently appears to be unsure of what day of the week it is. No, he didn’t put it quite like that, but he did say that a vote for Joe Biden is really a vote for Kamala Harris (because of the whole viability issue). Quoting DeSantis once again... I think the American people should know if you’re voting for Biden, you know, you are effectively voting for Harris to likely be the President of the United States over the next four years. There’s just a good chance that that happens, given those actuarial tables. Not lost on me in that quote is that DeSantis is specifically predicting the demise of ‘Ole Joe before January 20th of 2025 (at least so far as he said Harris would be president for the next four years). Now, I’m not sure how that will play in the media or on the trail. But show of hands. How many people right now think Joe Biden would survive a second term in office? And if you were forced to make a bet right now on that one, how would you bet? Now, there’s a semi sensationalism which goes along with DeSantis providing a logic-based assessment of why Joe Biden will be dead before he’d be done in office if elected to a second term (or if he’d even remain viable to begin it). But it also is likely aimed at once again attempting to illustrate the contrast between himself and the Republican front-runner as well without actually saying it. If you took precisely what he said about Joe Biden’s viability, via the actuarial tables, it could be directly applied to make a similar statement about Trump and the odds of his making it through a second term as well. Punctuated by a second round of campaign layoffs this week, it’s safe to say our governor’s presidential campaign isn’t going as well as he’d hoped. And I don’t expect his campaign to explicitly embrace the slogan of “vote for me because they’ll be dead”. But he did in so many words say it out loud. If all else fails... But that line of thinking got me to thinking about...
- Presidents who’ve died in office. It’s trivia time. First up...do you know how many presidents have died in office? The answer is eight. I know, that’s a harder question than it sounds as though it might be at first. Second, can you name the eight presidents who’ve died in office? That’s probably harder than it sounds as though it would be as well. The eight are in order... William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Ok...third, of those eight how many died of natural causes/illness and how many were assassinated? The answer is four and four. William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt died of natural causes/illness while Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy were assassinated. Forth and finally, what is the average age of a president who died of natural causes/illness? You might also be surprised to know that it’s only 63 (the average age of the assassinated presidents is 52). It’s been 60 years since we lost a serving president, yet still nearly a fifth of all presidents have died in office. Speaking of former presidents (though one who survived his presidency)...
- The imminent indictment? For nearly two weeks we’ve known a January 6th related indictment was likely coming from the Jack Smith empaneled Washington D.C. Grand Jury following the targeting letter received and revealed by former President Donald Trump. And yesterday Trump’s attorneys once again met with Special Counsel Jack Smith and his prosecutorial team in a prelude to what we’ve seen before. However, it’s this pending potential indictment which would have the potential to be the most precarious for Trump yet. And the reasons are three-fold. First because the charges may include insurrection. And what that likely meant was an even more tense back and forth negotiation between the competing legal teams. And that’s because the seriousness of the charge brings with it the possibility of the former President of the United States being imprisoned leading up to a trial. I can only imagine what the conversation with Trump’s legal team would be like if that were to come up. But it’s also because the case is set to be brought in Washington, D.C. Based on political composition there’s literally no worse city in the country for Donald Trump to be tried for anything than in Washington D.C. where he won only 5% of the vote three years ago. That would make the odds of having even one juror who might be sympathetic to the former president on the jury extremely low. And that also matters that much more in this case because while even a prisoner may be elected President of the United States – we’re talking about the one potential exception here. The 14th amendment allows for a simple majority vote in Congress to ban someone who’s been convicted of insurrection from serving (as opposed to the two-thirds vote required in the senate under impeachment proceedings). Jack Smith has previously said he would intend to move forward with a speedy trial. His docs case has been scheduled for next May in Ft. Pierce. What would a D.C. judge decide to do? And what will Jack Smith seek to do with Trump in the meantime? But there was an interesting wrinkle or two. In the docs case new charges were brought against a Mar-a-Lago manager for alleged obstruction offenses. That included a new charge for Trump. The other wrinkle, at the conclusion of the J6 meeting with Trump’s attorney’s the former President “Truthed” this: My attorneys had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning, explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an Indictment of me would only further destroy our Country. No indication of notice was given during the meeting — Do not trust the Fake News on anything! So, maybe the indictment isn’t imminent after all? We’ve seen indictments with Trump before. But we’ve not seen one with the stakes as high as they potentially are within that Washington D.C. Grand Jury room. Stand by for news. One way or the other.