Friday mailbag

Question time!

Happy Friday! And happy (almost) Memorial Day weekend. I hope you’ve got great plans. I am excited to see my boys play in a soccer and a baseball tournament!

We end this week with two more Republican presidential candidates than we started it with — and the debt ceiling crisis (still) unsolved.

Lots of great questions this week. Let’s get to them!

Q: Hey Chris, I’m enjoying your book! In your article about Dianne Feinstein’s current predicament you mentioned Barbara Lee and Adam Schiff but not Katie Porter. Do you see Porter as a serious contender for the CA Senate seat?

A: Thanks! (You can buy my book here! It rocks!) As for the California Senate race, I should have mentioned Porter. She is certainly viable in the race. Right now it’s basically a fundraising contest with Schiff in the lead, Porter in 2nd and Lee in 3rd.

The X factor in the race is whether Feinstein ultimately does decide to resign before her term is over. If she does, Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint her replacement. And he has already said that he will appoint a black woman if another vacancy happens in the Senate.

That would presumably mean he would pick Lee. But, would she serve just the unexpired term of Feinstein or run for the full six year term in 2024? No one knows although I struggle to see Lee limiting herself to an abbreviated term if and when she does make it to the Senate.

Q: One question in the aftermath of the DeSantis announcement.

I was watching online as it unfolded, and at some point over 583,000 people joined that specific Twitter Space.

Yes, they should have made arrangements to accommodate such a huge tsunami, but to me that is a huge number, likely beyond what they thought the "turnout" would be, and this may have contributed to the glitches.

What do you think this high level of interest in DeSantis' candidacy (at least among Twitter users) means. Do you think this positive spin will gain traction?

A: Governor DeSantis, I appreciate you taking the time to send in a question!

I kid.

Seriously though, I do not think that spin will catch on. While 583,000 people seems like a lot, it’s not as many people as watch ANY primetime cable TV show. So, perspective.

All that said, I DO think there is a lot of interest in DeSantis’ candidacy. After all, he’s the only candidate not named Donald Trump who is getting double digit support in the race! And he raised $8 million in just the first 24 hours of his campaign.

I also think that his Twitter announcement was a major error — and one with consequences that could last longer than you think. I wrote about all of that here.

Q: I'm not mentioning names- but what if a president tried to change the constitution to serve more than two terms?

What do you believe is the feeling of establishment Republicans and donors at this point? I'm sure many of them would love a nominee other than the former president.

A: In writing about the possibility of Trump in 2028, I thought about what might happen if he was elected in 2024 and then just refused to leave office when his second term ended.

He brought up the prospect regularly when he was in office.

“The good news is that at the end of 6 years, after America has been made GREAT again and I leave the beautiful White House (do you think the people would demand that I stay longer,” he tweeted in 2019.

And in 2018, Trump said this: “We’re cutting record numbers of regulations – we’ve cut more regulations in a year and a quarter than any administration whether it’s four years, eight years, or in one case 16 years. Should we go back to 16 years? Should we do that? Congressman, can we do that?”

He has always been “joking.” But given what Trump did when he lost the election in 2020 — falsely claimed election fraud, refused to concede etc. — I rule absolutely nothing out.

Q: Just read your write up on your current top 10 Republicans most likely to be the 2024 nominee. Just for fun, Twilight Zone-style, what would the list look like if Trump hadn't won in 2016? I know the toothpaste is out of the tube on what he's done to politics in general and the Republican party in particular, but who would be the top alternate timeline Republicans in 2024?

A: Hmmmm. Good thought experiment.

There were a million candidates in that 2016 race but, judging solely by organization and fundraising prowess, let’s assume one of three people would have won: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz or Jeb(!).

Given where the party was — angry, ready for change — I actually think Cruz would have been the favorite. (He wound up finishing 2nd to Trump anyway.)

How different would Cruz as president have been from Trump? Considerably so, I think. While Cruz, like Trump, is hated by Democrats he is on the normal spectrum of American politics. I don’t think he would have refused to accept the results of the 2020 election had he lost and I certainly don’t think he would have encouraged the rioters on January 6.

Q: Recent comments seem to suggest a good chance that the Federal investigations into Donald Trump, especially on the classified documents issue, will end up in indictment and possible imprisonment. First, Chris, do you think that Trump will end up serving jail time for this, and/or the other investigations, such as Jan 6 and Georgia? And, if so, how would that impact the 2024 Presidential race? I understand that imprisonment does not necessarily bar someone from running and it seems as though nothing, even imprisonment, would impact MAGA voters but wondering how you see things unfolding.

A: There’s no question that the classified documents investigation poses a real threat to Trump.

ABC reported this week that Trump’s legal team has asked for a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland for fear that the investigation could soon lead to an indictment of the former president.

I wish I knew a) what the charges might be and b) whether Trump faces real exposure to prison time, as a result.

Obviously he can run even if he is sentenced to prison. And I do think at this point that his support — in a Republican primary — would largely stay steady if he was sentenced to jail time. (I can’t believe I wrote that sentence but, well, here we are.)

I have a VERY hard time, however, seeing an imprisoned (or recently released) Trump winning a general election. He already has problems with independents and women — and I don’t see how being in prison would do anything other than hurt him further with those groups.

Q: It just feels like we're heading towards a default on the debt limit. Neither side is going to budge on demands and if one does, it seems like they won't have the votes in the house. My question to you is who do you think will blink first between Biden/House Democrats or House GOP once we actually hit the default?

A: I guess I have taken a more optimistic turn on a debt ceiling deal this week. Reading the coverage out of the meetings Thursday made me think we may get the outlines of a deal on Friday.

Now, the question you raise is a really good one: Even if there is a debt deal struck, can it pass the House? Given where the House Freedom Caucus has been of late, I can’t see them voting for any sort of compromise — which this deal will inevitably be.

If that comes to pass, a whole bunch of Democrats will be necessary to pass the deal through the House. Which isn’t going to sit well with a lot of them who have been increasingly vocal about their unhappiness with the outlines of the deal to date.

Would they sink a deal that Biden cut? Ultimately I don’t think they would.

Q: Do you think the DeSantis team has seriously considered the possibility that Trump won't endorse him in case he wins and will start a separate bid? What can they do in that case, as even if only 1% would go to Trump DeSantis can't afford to lose any votes in a competitive race.

A: I think you HAVE to consider that possibility. After all, Trump has never conceded defeat. Not after the 2016 Iowa caucuses when he lost to Cruz and obviously not in the 2020 election. Hell, Trump suggested shenanigans in the 2016 election when he won!

That said, I am not sure what the heck DeSantis could do if Trump simply refused to admit he lost. Or even if he decided to start running a third party bid. (It’s not clear to me he could do that because of sore loser laws.)

If Trump did manage to run a third party bid, it would effectively doom DeSantis’ chances of winning.

Q: Do you think there's an actual chance Donald Trump actually won't participate in Republican [debates]? I think he wouldn't be able to resist the attention and ratings and would attend at least one of them for a chance to attack DeSantis on live TV.

A: I agree! I think Trump may well skip the first debate in August and maybe even the next one in September. But, I can’t see him not doing ANY debates — mostly because he could never deal with the storyline that he was dodging DeSantis.

Plus, Trump is a proven commodity in debates. Unlike everyone else in the field — including DeSantis — Trump has been in these settings before. He knows what he wants to do and how to do it.

I also think Trump and his people need to be very wary of handing momentum to DeSantis, momentum that could be built by a strong performance in a Trump-less debate.

Q: I have read where in the past you have written about how incumbents deciding to not run can be a bellwether for a particular election. I am wondering what you think Senator Tom Carper retiring tells us about the upcoming election?

A: I would differentiate between incumbents in swing seats or states and those in safe seats. Carper is very much in the latter category — and I don’t think his retirements means much of anything other than, in his late 70s, he’s ready to be done running for office.

Now, had either Sen. Tammy Baldwin or Sen. Bob Casey Jr — in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, respectively — retired, that would have, to my mind, signaled real concerns among smart Democrats about the political landscape heading into 2024.

Both are running, however.

Q: This column by Matt Bai got me thinking. How many of these GOP candidates do you think genuinely believe they have a chance to win v are running hoping to end up like Huckabee/Kasich and get book deals and FOX News/CNN/MSNBC contributor deals out of it?

A: There’s no question that in the last 10-15 years, running for president has become good for business.

That said, I don’t think anyone in the race today is doing it solely (or mostly) because they think it will be good for their bottom line down the line.

I think most people in the race see a path for themselves to be the nominee — even if that path is admittedly narrow.

That doesn’t mean they don’t have a plan B or an alternate outcome where, maybe, they wind up as the vice presidential nominee or improve their positioning for 2028.

But, at this early stage of the race, I think most of these people get up in the morning and see a future president in the mirror. Hope springs eternal!

Q: Assuming Trump winds up as the nominee, who do you rank as the top potential VP candidates? I can’t help but think Scott is up there, assuming he doesn’t place well in the early running.

If you had to bet, would you place your money on Scott or the field?

A: I’m with you that Tim Scott is not only the odds-on favorite to be Trump’s VP pick but would also be a really smart pick too. Scott is the first black Republican Senator from the South since Reconstruction; he’s also the first black GOP Senator since 2019.

The Republican party badly needs to expand beyond its white base and Scott on the ticket would, in theory, help with that.

What might keep Scott from getting the veep nod? I could see Trump going with Nikki Haley — for reasons similar to why he would pick Scott. And, I guess, it’s possible that if DeSantis was seen as having come close to beating Trump then he could wind up on the ticket. But I think the Trump-DeSantis thing is going to get so nasty that there’s no way Trump picks DeSantis (or vice versa).

Q: Let's take a brief break from politics. What's you favorite sport to watch? To play? And favorite sports movie?

A: Favorite sport to play is definitely basketball. I used to play pickup basketball multiple times a week. I need to get back to that.

I really like watching my older son play soccer. I am sort of new to the sport but have enjoyed learning about the strategy behind it. To that end, I loved this book.

Favorite sports movie? “Hoosiers.”