CHRIS CRUCIAL: Is not voting for Trump *enough*? 🗳️

PLUS: Mike Lawler, call your office

Read my mission statement! And become an investor in what I am building! A paid subscription is $6 a month/$60 for the year — and comes with loads of perks including a 15-minute Zoom call with me! Join the movement today!👇

1. To vote or not to vote?

Two prominent Republicans on Thursday made clear that they won’t be voting for Donald Trump this fall.

First, there was former Ohio Gov. John Kasich:

And then there was former Trump Administration National Security Adviser John Bolton who, after previously saying he would write in Dick Cheney’s name, now says he is leaning toward writing in Ronald Reagan’s name.

“I am not going to vote for either Harris or Trump,” said Bolton. “Neither one are qualified to be president.”

That Bolton and Kasich aren’t voting for Trump isn’t surprising. Both have been critical of the former president — and how he has transformed the GOP — for years.

But what is interesting to me is that neither man will vote for Kamala Harris — or, in Kasich’s case, if he is voting for Harris, he won’t say it publicly.

Bolton and Kasich are not alone in this. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has come under considerable pressure in recent weeks to endorse Harris — or at the very least say he is voting for her.

To date, he has resisted that pressure. As the Washington Post noted recently:

Romney has questioned the value and impact of his endorsement and expressed a desire to preserve his ability to rebuild the Republican Party in a post-Trump world, said three people familiar with those conversations and his thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

He has also cited concerns for the safety of his family as one reason for his reluctance to endorse her, a person familiar with his thinking said, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.

Romney has said he wrote in his wife’s name in each of the last 2 presidential elections.

I get it. In fact, I hear from lots of Republicans who loathe Trump that they won’t vote against him or publicly come out against him because they want to maintain some level of credibility within the GOP for the inevitable post-Trump reckoning within the party.

(Sidebar: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine took that logic a step further — explaining to Politico’s Jonathan Martin why he would be voting for Trump. “If you want to continue to be effective you have to do it from inside your own party,” DeWine said. “My goal has always been to get things done. I’ve been I think successful at it. And I’ve got two years and three months and I want to continue to get stuff done.”

That makes some sense to me. But I do wonder this: If you believe that Trump is an active threat to the country — and lots and lots of these people do — then how can you either a) not vote at all or b) write-in someone like Ronald Reagan who isn’t going to win (and is also dead)?

It’s a question I keep coming back to — and raising with Republican elected officials and GOP strategists who are not Trump fans.

Like, this election is a binary choice. Only two people have a chance to be president in January 2025: Trump and Harris. Writing someone else in is, effectively, throwing away your vote. It’s not all that dissimilar to simply not voting at all.

To be clear: I get the idea of writing someone in, generally speaking. It functions as a protest vote — I don’t like either of these options and I am not going to hold my nose and vote for one of them, and all that.

But lots of these Republicans have said, publicly, that they believe Trump is dangerous. That he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the White House again. That a second Trump term would make what he did in the first term look tame by comparison.

If they believe the stakes are truly that high, then is simply not voting for Trump enough? Doesn’t it require you to not only vote against him but also vote for the only other person who can be president other than him?

It seems to me that it does. Because if the predictions some of these Republicans have made about a Trump 2nd term come true, there won’t be much of a party (or a country) to rebuild from the inside out, right?

2. The Blackface Congressman

I have two ironclad rules of politics.

Rule #1: Never compare anything in modern American politics to the Nazis.

Rule #2: Never, ever appear in blackface.

New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler just admitted to breaking Rule #2.

Here’s the New York Times:

Representative Mike Lawler of New York wore blackface as part of a Halloween costume when he was a college student almost two decades ago, according to photographs recently obtained by The New York Times.

The images, taken around October 2006, show a 20-year-old Mr. Lawler at a campus social gathering dressed as Michael Jackson. He is wearing a black shirt and a red jacket and, in one photo, is striking a signature Jackson dance pose. His face has also been visibly darkened.

Lawler’s explanation is, well, incredible. The costume was “truly the sincerest form of flattery, a genuine homage to my musical hero since I was a little kid trying to moonwalk through my mom’s kitchen,” he told the Times, adding: “The ugly practice of blackface was the furthest thing from my mind. Let me be clear, this is not that.”

Except, of course, this is, in fact, that. (It is true, however, that Lawler is a really big Michael Jackson fan.)

Worth noting: Lawler is only the latest politician to break my blackface rule. In 2019, then Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam had to apologize after a photo of him in blackface — standing next to someone dressed in a KKK outfit at a party in 1984 — went public.

For Lawler, the blackface story comes at the worst possible time. He finds himself in a competitive race against former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones for the 17th district. The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, a nonpartisan handicapping site, rates the race a “toss up.”

3. The Trump health question 💊

Earlier today, the New York Times published a story on Donald Trump’s health — and, in particular, how little we actually know about it.

It is remarkable. Trump would be the oldest president ever if he serves for four years (he would be 82) and we know less about his overall health than about the medical history of ANY president in the modern age.

I made a video about [waves hands around] all of this on my YouTube channel. Check it out here:

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“So what?” — Donald Trump’s reaction when told, on January 6, 2021, that Vice President Mike Pence was in danger

ONE GOOD CHART

Two decades ago, 75% of people in Gallup polling said they had a “great deal” or a “fair” amount of trust in the judicial branch of the federal government. Today? It’s just 48% — near an all-time low.

SONG OF THE DAY

Being Dead is a weird name for a band. But holy cow the band’s new album is pretty damn amazing. (Pitchfork — which I have an on-again, off-again relationship with) gave it an 8.3.). This is “Van Goes” off of it.

Thanks for reading! This nightly newsletter brings you ALL of what you need to know from the world of politics. Think of it as a daily cheat sheet! If you want to get it in your email inbox every night at 7:30 pm, become a subscriber today!