CLAY: The way I think about this is, it feels like such a calculated attempt to turn Trump into a referendum on the midterms and not make us focus on everything Joe Biden has done that’s a disaster. I think that Trump should go — and this is just my opinion — I think that Trump should go ahead and announce, if I were advising him. Now, I don’t think it’s the best thing for Republicans. I think it’s the best thing for Trump. And let me explain what I mean by this.
Because if they charge him, Buck — and I think there’s a decent chance they will — it plays completely into his narrative and might make it less likely that they charge him if he’s already announced as a 2024 presidential candidate. Because then he can say, “Look what happened. I announced for president, and they immediately charged me with a bunch of different crimes. This is the way they’re gonna keep me from winning in 2024,” versus, Buck, if they charge him with crimes and then he ends up announcing after the crimes, narratively, he doesn’t have the same cache. I think it plays much better if he announces for president, then gets charged with a crime.
Now, we can think, “Oh, he’s going to run,” which I think everybody out there does, and that’s why they’re charging him. But if he’s already an announced candidate, then they charge him, I think narratively he’s got a really popular and powerful attack. I don’t know that it’s best for the midterms ’cause it does make him already a part of the story. But I think as soon as they raided him, they made — Democrats did — Trump a part of the midterms in a way that he would not have been minus the raid. That make sense?
BUCK: Yeah, of course. What’s fascinating is that you have this decision-making that goes along the lines of, well, we can’t charge him before the election because that will seem political.
CLAY: Yeah, of course.
BUCK: But if you’re moving charging decisions until after an election, that in itself is a political decision as well. So, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t from that perspective. Obviously, the thing to do here would be to not charge him because I think the whole thing is bogus and insane. But that doesn’t mean that it’s going to slow down Democrats at all from it.
I also think at some level, too, the decision-making around this is affected by what Democrats think their prospects are going in here. I think there’s a lot of discussion going on — anybody who believes, what, Merrick Garland never talks to anybody in the White House, there’s no conversations going on about is Joe Biden even gonna run again? Give me a break, folks. Right? These people are all having, you know, lunch with each other in D.C. It’s a swamp for a reason. So I think that all weighs in, that all factors into this as well. And, I mean, on the one hand it feels like they have to charge him. On the other hand, to charge President Trump would be so crazy that it’s hard to fathom they would go through with it.
CLAY: Yeah. And I think the other aspect of this is, a lot of this is calculus in Trump’s mind and his advisers’ mind. Are they going to charge him? Does this affidavit — remember the big hearing on whether this affidavit gets released is Thursday — does this affidavit come out? That would be very helpful, I think, to Trump. I understand why he’s arguing for that. He would like to see the information that they’re basing their warrant request on. All of these things are difficult.
The best possible timing would be if Trump could announce for president and then he got charged like a week later. If you’re trying to put it out in Trump World. The better opportunity for him would have been if the FBI had raided him after he were already announced. But I think what we’re seeing is Trump is going to be a big part of the midterms, and what is the calculus on his impact on the elections, Buck? How many people are going to vote or not vote based on Trump? It’s unfortunate because Biden is the story. He’s the failure as president. It should be a referendum on him.
BUCK: And of course when we have the results in, it will be, did Trump candidates do well? How did Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker end up faring, for example? There are a lot of Trump-backed candidates, obviously, but those two in particular we’ve been talking about. You know, it is going to be a difficult fight against Raphael Warnock in Georgia for sure. It’s gonna be a difficult fight against Fetterman in Pennsylvania. And then does Trump have the golden touch, so to speak, or not? A lot of things we’re gonna see.
CLAY: And what in the world is going to happen with January 6th, right? Are they gonna try to bring that back just in time for the midterms too?