As we begin 2024 — this leap year, this Summer Olympics year, the end of the American experiment probably LOL — Fox News has a message for its viewers, and it is that Donald Trump can totally be president from prison. So quit worryin’, MAGA viewers!
At least that was the message of one Fox contributor, Dr. Jeanette Nesheiwat. (She’s an Arkansas MD who goes on Fox News, so obviously you can trust her with your life and also your legal opinions.)
On Monday’s “Outnumbered” — yeah, those idiots had to come to work to jingle TruckNutz around for their white shut-in idiot viewers on New Year’s Day — Nesheiwat told host Kennedy that Trump can “be president from jail if he has to.” Kennedy had just asked, “What happens if he’s indicted at some point?” (Giving her the benefit of the doubt, we imagine her brain meant to ask what if he’s convicted, since he’s already indicted on 91 felony charges. But sure, more could always be coming!)
It’s cool, he can president from jail.
When Nesheiwat said that, Paul Lauro, the interchangeable white dude in the middle of the panel, quietly said “that’s right.” (In case you want to know how good at politics Mauro is, in the same segment he refers to Bill Maher and Joe Rogan as creatures of “the Left.” That’s what a “leftist” is to these dipshits.)
But hey, don’t say these people are nihilistic lunatics who’ve pledged their allegiance to a death cult, or that they’re the “and domestic” of “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Nesheiwat said “Republicans are still rallying around Donald Trump,” echoing earlier babbling from Lauro about how Republicans will stand by their man, because of the “selective” prosecutions yadda yadda. (Only if we’re talking about all the hundreds of crimes Trump remains unindicted for, right, Kennedy?)
And they might be right! There’s an article today in the Washington Post that says Republicans are just getting more loyal to their ugly pockmarked death cult leader. Wonkette will be taking a closer look at that article this morning.
But! To Kennedy’s specific question, or the one we think she meant to ask anyway, there’s also data that says the garbled brains on that couch might be hanging their hopes on false chickens before they hatch, or however the expression goes.
Firstly, a New York Times/Siena poll just before Christmas found that almost one in four of Trump’s own supporters don’t want him to be the Republican nominee if he’s convicted of a crime.
And:
Another 20 percent of those who identified themselves as Trump supporters went so far as to say that he should go to prison if he is convicted in the federal case in Washington in which he stands accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. And 23 percent of his supporters said they believe that he has committed “serious federal crimes,” up from 11 percent in July.
The day after Christmas, the same paper published an opinion piece from Norm Eisen, Celinda Lake, and Anat Shenker-Osorio, which dug into all the available numbers and found that a conviction very well could be the Achilles’ heel for Trump. They refer, obviously, to Trump’s legal team’s constant, obnoxious efforts to obstruct and delay the cases against him, underscoring how that very maneuvering shows us how terrified they are of the same thing.
To be clear, they aren’t doing a hopeful numbers thing and just looking at that one poll. They looked at six months of polling, and that’s what voters keep saying, regardless of whether Trump is allegedly up or down one or two points in the popular vote at any given moment. Indeed, they found the effect to be extremely pronounced with swing-state voters. As we know, in our non-democracy, that’s what actually matters.
Read the whole thing for all their methodology and their read on why they think the numbers swing for Trump like this in the event of a conviction. One big factor: The notion of a jury of Trump’s peers convicting him seems to affect how Americans answers pollsters’ questions.
And then read their summary of what’s ahead for Trump in this Happy New Year:
Still likely to be completed before Election Day remains the special counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution of Mr. Trump for allegedly scheming to overturn the 2020 election. That trial had been set to start on March 4, 2024, but that date has been put on hold, pending appellate review of the trial court’s rejection of Mr. Trump‘s presidential immunity. On Friday the Supreme Court declined Mr. Smith’s request for immediate review of the question, but the appeal is still headed to the high court on a rocket docket. That is because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hear oral argument on Jan. 9 and will probably issue a decision within days of that, setting up a prompt return to the Supreme Court. Moreover, with three other criminal cases also set for trial in 2024, it is entirely possible that Mr. Trump will have at least one criminal conviction before November 2024.
Yeah, maybe he could president from jail, Fox News. The American people may not be willing to give him that opportunity, though.
Maybe that’s why Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are over here waving their arms screaming promises to give Trump the old Ford-Nixon reacharound if you’ll just elect them pretty please.
[Mediaite / New York Times / also NYT]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
If you’re shopping on Amazon anyway, this portal gives us a small commission.