The '24 Seven - 4/25/24

The top seven stories shaping the race for the White House

Hello, and welcome to The ‘24 Seven – 24sight’s daily roundup of the top seven stories shaping the race for the White House. 

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George Washington resigns his command the Army to the Congress, 1783, starting the peaceful transfer of power. Washington handed what could have been unilateral power back to the representatives of the people, forming the bedrock of the republic of what would come to be known as the United States of America. (John Trumbull, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

1 ‘Rule for the ages’

That’s how U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch termed it, as he weighed just how and if the nation’s highest court should determine the criminal liability of a president after they leave office.

“We’re writing a rule for the ages,” Gorsuch said.

The hypotheticals put forth by the justices ranged the gamut from terrifying to terrifying.

What if a president directs the military to stage a coup?

What if a president assassinates someone?

What if a president uses the government to investigate and exact revenge on a political opponent?

If a president pardons themself of any crimes — as Trump is expected to do if he wins reelection — does that make that president immune from prosecution?

Trump’s legal argument has long been that presidents enjoy total immunity from prosecution for any acts taken while in office — particularly against allegations he is responsible for the January 6th insurrection, in which his supporters attacked the Capitol in an effort to undo the 2020 election and keep him in office.

The read from pro watchers and chroniclers of the high court came back mixed, with some deeming it a win for Trump in terms of sheer politics and mechanics, to others calling it a loss for the presumptive Republican nominee for president by sheer fact of the across-the-board skepticism that a president could enjoy total immunity — in essence making the office of the president more like that of a king or monarch.

On a more “pedestrian” level — quotes to emphasize how uncommon all of this is — a remand with new instructions to the lower court, as the New York Times forecasts, could mean Trump is never tried for January 6th. Or it could mean that he is tried, potentially next year, keeping him at the center of all things political even if the majority of the country wants to moves past this trauma.

2 Team Anybody Else

We get it. 

Sitting through another Joe Biden vs Donald Trump slugfest isn’t what many people are looking forward to this fall. 

But new polling from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center shines a light on just how bad rematch fatigue has gotten. Nearly half of the respondents (49%) to a recent survey said they’d replace both of the candidates in the current presidential contest if they could, with slightly more of that cohort in favor of keeping Trump and jettisoning Biden (18%) than those who preferred keeping Biden and ejecting Trump (16%).

Things got even dicier for incumbent President Biden when Pew drilled down on his supporters, 2/3 of which (62%) endorsed swapping out both of the candidates compared to just over 1/3 (35%) of self-identified Trump fans who were interested in throwing both of them overboard. 

3 Arizona Whammy 1 – Abortion ban repealed

Three House Republicans crossed party lines in the Arizona state house to repeal the near-total abortion ban that sparked a national backlash earlier this month. 

Republicans including Trump and Senate hopeful Kari Lake were left reeling after Arizona’s conservative high court turned back the clock on reproductive rights nearly 200 years by reinstating Civil War-era restrictions. The U.S. Supreme Court’s polarizing decision to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022 wound up hurting Republicans during the midterm elections, and party officials and the current crop of GOP candidates have been scrambling to avoid a similar fate this fall. 

Arizona House Republicans beat back two earlier attempts to unravel their abortion win but lost this third round over concerns about the outdated law. “Unfortunately, protecting women in life-threatening situations and accounting for cases of rape and incest were not considered at the time of its passing,” Arizona state representative Tim Dunn said of the need to get with the times. 

Now the Arizona state Senate has to weigh in. 

4 Arizona whammy 2 – Trump allies snared in fake elector scheme

In yet another sign that the 2020 election will never actually end, Arizona attorney general Kris Mayes has indicted several former and current Trump advisors as well as local delegates for alleged election interference. 

While Trump, who is currently sitting in a New York courtroom facing 2016 election-related charges, only makes a cameo in the Arizona filings as an unindicted co-conspirator, the New York Times reports that the headliners include former New York City mayor and occasional Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump legal aide Boris Epshteyn, and embattled election fraud advocate John Eastman. 

Epshteyn was by Trump’s side – and got heckled by one irreverent observer – when the embattled former president returned to Washington earlier this year to test out his presidential immunity claim in D.C. Circuit Court. 

5 Bringing the War to Washington

The White House Correspondents Dinner festivities are getting into full swing ahead of this weekend’s annual dinner. 

And pro-Palestinian activists are planning to crash the party to protest the situation in Gaza. 

NBC News reports that hundreds of people incensed by the Israel-Hamas war that’s ripped the region apart since early October are expected to demonstrate against Biden, the Israeli military, and U.S. media for the mounting death toll in Palestine. 

“Over the past six months, the mainstream press has become the mouthpiece of the homicidal Israeli regime, promoting dehumanizing anti-Palestinian propaganda and platforming genocide apologists and perpetrators, while simultaneously ignoring, downplaying, and underreporting Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians,” Gaza-based journalists wrote in an appeal to boycott Saturday’s dinner. 

“For journalists to fraternize at an event with President Biden and Vice President Harris would be to normalize, sanitize, and whitewash the administration’s role in genocide,” the group warned.

6 Radiant power

Reality TV megastar turned political influencer Kim Kardashian was back at the White House Thursday for a discussion on criminal justice reform with Vice President Kamala Harris.

The former wife of Kanye “Ye” West played a pivotal role in driving criminal justice reform four years ago when Trump was in the White House.

7 Keeping it Civil

As we head into White House Correspondents Dinner weekend, a big shoutout to SHRM (the artist formerly known as Society for Human Resource Management) which hosted the “Toast to Civility” event Wednesday.

There’s a lot happening, all at once, and it can get a tad overwhelming — it’s good to stay grounded.

Look for us at events through the weekend, Warren Rojas and Tom LoBianco, your faithful scribes, will be out and about. Let us know how it’s going here, if you like the reporting, what you’re looking for in scrappy news outlets — warren@24sight.news - tom@24sight.news.

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