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      Newt Gingrich warns Republicans that Joe Biden is winning the fight

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      Newt Gingrich warns Republicans that Joe Biden is winning the fightFormer speaker who led charge against Bill Clinton raises eyebrows with column heralding Democrat’s first-term success Republicans must “quit underestimating” Joe Biden, the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich said, because the president is winning the fight.Biden tells Democrats to revise primary calendar to boost Black voters’ voicesRead moreWriting on his own website, Gingrich said: “Conservatives’ hostility to the Biden administration on our terms tends to blind us to just how effective Biden has been on his terms.“… We dislike Biden so much, we pettily focus on his speaking difficulties, sometimes strange behavior, clear lapses of memory and other personal flaws. Our aversion to him and his policies makes us underestimate him and the Democrats.”Gingrich’s words pleased the White House – Ron Klain, Joe Biden’s chief of staff, tweeted a link with the message: “You don’t have to take my word for it, any more.”The column also caused consternation among Washington commentators, in part because, as Axios put it, “a leader of the GOP’s ’90s-era New Right [is] arguing that Joe Biden is not just a winner – but a role model”.Gingrich has been a fierce partisan warrior ever since he entered Congress, in 1979, then as speaker led the charge against Bill Clinton, culminating in a failed attempt to remove the Democrat via impeachment. In the conclusion to his column, he used the term “Defeat Big Government Socialism” – a version of the title of his latest book.Gingrich told Axios: “I was thinking about football and the clarity of winning and losing. It hit me that, measured by his goals, Biden has been much more successful than we have been willing to credit.”Biden recently turned 80. He has said he will use the Christmas holiday to decide if he will run for re-election.Gingrich, 79, compared Biden to Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, the latter previously the oldest president ever in office, having been 77 when he left the White House in 1989.Reagan and Eisenhower, Gingrich said, “preferred to be underestimated” and “wanted people to think of them as pleasant – but not dangerous”, and thereby enjoyed great success.“Biden has achieved something similar,” Gingrich continued, by taking “an amazingly narrow four-vote majority in the US House and a 50-50 tie in the Senate and turn[ing] it into trillions of dollars in spending – and a series of radical bills”.Gingrich also accused Biden of pursuing “a strategy of polarizing Americans against Donald Trump supporters” – more than 950 of whom have been charged over the deadly Capitol riot they staged after the former president’s defeat in 2020 – and “grossly exaggerat[ing] the threat to abortion rights”, after the supreme court removed the right this year.But Gingrich also gave Biden credit on the chief foreign policy challenge of his first term in power. The president, the former speaker said, had “carefully and cautiously waged war in Ukraine with no American troops … US weapons and financial aid [helping] cripple what most thought would be an easy victory for Russian president Vladimir Putin”.The result, Gingrich said, was that last month “the Biden team had one of the best first-term off-year elections in history. They were not repudiated.”Gingrich advised Republicans “to look much more deeply at what worked and what did not work in 2020 and 2022”, as they prepare to face “almost inevitable second-time Democrat presidential nominee Biden”.According to Axios, Biden is thought likely to run. Friends of the first couple, the site said, “think only two things could stop him: health or Jill”, the first lady.TopicsJoe BidenBiden administrationNewt GingrichDemocratsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Biden tells Democrats to revise primary calendar to boost Black voters’ voices

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      Biden tells Democrats to revise primary calendar to boost Black voters’ voicesPredominantly white New Hampshire reportedly could be scheduled later with South Carolina tipped to move up to first Democrats are poised to shake up the way in which they nominate presidential candidates, after Joe Biden said the primary process should better represent the party’s non-white voters.Biden has reportedly told Democrats that Iowa, the state that has led off the Democratic voting calendar since 1976, should be moved down the calendar, with South Carolina instead going first.The move would see New Hampshire, which has technically held the nation’s first primary since 1920 (Iowa uses a slightly different system of caucuses, or in-person voting), shunted down the calendar.Both Iowa and New Hampshire are predominantly white states. Clamor has been growing inside and outside the Democratic party for a different state, with a population more representative of the US as a whole, to be given the first go.Associated Press reported that Biden had written to the Democratic National Committee regarding the proposal. The DNC’s rules committee is meeting on Friday to vote on the primary calendar.“For decades, Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process,” Biden wrote.“We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”In the letter Biden did not mention specific states he would like to see go first, but has told Democrats he wants South Carolina moved to the first position, Associated Press reported, citing anonymous sources. The Washington Post first reported the proposed shake-up of the primary process.Associated Press reported that the new schedule would see South Carolina hold the first primary, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada on the same day a week later.Georgia and Michigan, which were crucial to Biden’s 2020 election win, would follow, AP reported.Iowa came under fire after a series of technical glitches led to a three-day wait before the Democratic party declared Pete Buttigieg the winner. The results were so marred that the Associated Press ultimately did not declare any victor.Biden also criticized the caucus system, which is used in Iowa and three other states to nominate a presidential candidate. In a caucus voters have to physically travel to a location and stand in a section of the room designated for their chosen candidate, before potentially then changing their minds and going to a different part of the room to select a different candidate.Biden said caucuses were “restrictive and anti-worker” because they require voters “to spend significant amounts of time” on one night gathering to choose candidates in person, “disadvantaging hourly workers and anyone who does not have the flexibility to go to a set location at a set time”.Biden’s direction comes as the DNC rules committee gathers in Washington on Friday to vote on shaking up the presidential primary calendar starting in 2024. If Biden runs for a second term, as he has suggested he will, the changes will be largely meaningless until the 2028 Democratic primaries as he would probably win the nomination easily in 2024.The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has already decided to keep Iowa’s caucus as the first contest in its 2024 presidential calendar, ensuring that GOP White House hopefuls – which include Trump – will continue campaigning there frequently.TopicsDemocratsJoe BidenUS elections 2024US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ron DeSantis book announcement a clear sign of presidential ambition

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      Ron DeSantis book announcement a clear sign of presidential ambitionFlorida governor expected to challenge Trump for Republican nod in 2024 will publish The Courage to Be Free in February In the clearest signal yet that Ron DeSantis is preparing a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, it was announced on Wednesday that the rightwing governor of Florida will publish a campaign-style book, mixing memoir with policy proposals.Republican Nikki Haley to decide on presidential bid over Christmas holidaysRead moreThe Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Renewal, will be published by Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins, on 28 February.The governor, his publisher said, will offer readers “a first-hand account from the blue-collar boy who grew up to take on Disney and Dr Fauci”.DeSantis has not announced a 2024 run, but he is widely reported to be considering one. His victory speech after a landslide re-election this month met with chants of “Two more years!”The cover of the governor’s book shows him smiling broadly in front of a US flag.With Donald Trump under fire over disappointing midterms results, looming indictments and a controversial dinner with a white supremacist, possible Republican opponents are rapidly coming into focus.Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president, has released a campaign-focused memoir, seeking to balance appeals to Trump’s supporters with distancing himself from the violent end to Trump’s time in office.Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, will release a book in the new year. Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador who released a memoir in 2019, is also edging up to the starting line.Announcing DeSantis’s book, HarperCollins signaled a focus on the culture-war issues and theatrically cruel policy stunts that have propelled the governor to the front rank of potential candidates, alongside Trump in polls and sometimes ahead, prompting the former president to lash out.DeSantis clashed with Disney, a large employer in Florida, over legislation regarding the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues in schools, which was branded “don’t say gay” by critics.DeSantis’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, through which Anthony Fauci has advised two presidents, remains highly controversial. Florida has recorded nearly 83,000 deaths, third among US states in a national death toll approaching 1.1m.HarperCollins said DeSantis would “reveal” how he “accomplished more for his state” than any other “American leader”. Citing DeSantis’s graduation from Yale and Harvard, service in Iraq – as a navy lawyer – and election to Congress in 2012, the publisher said “in all these places, Ron DeSantis learned the same lesson: he didn’t want to be part of the leftist elite.”01:41“Since becoming governor of the sunshine state, he has fought – and won – battle after battle, defeating not just opposition from the political left, but a barrage of hostile media coverage,” it added.The announcement – which echoed numerous rightwing talking points on hot button social issues like Covid-19 and education – echoed DeSantis’s strident speech in Tallahassee earlier this month, after his easy win over the Democrat Charlie Crist, in which he proclaimed Florida the state “where woke goes to die”.HarperCollins also promised to “deliver something no other politician’s memoir has before: stories of victory”.That might seem to some a curious claim, given, for just one recent example, the publication just two years ago of A Promised Land, Barack Obama’s memoir of his rise to the presidency, significan legislative victories and preparations for his second presidential election win.TopicsBooksRon DeSantisUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicansFloridanewsReuse this content More

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      Iowa Republicans threaten to move caucuses if Democrats change schedule

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      Iowa Republicans threaten to move caucuses if Democrats change scheduleParty chair says ‘I’ll move this thing to Halloween if that’s what it takes’ amid suggestion Democrats may go to Michigan first Few in the US would suggest that the presidential election process should last even longer than it already does, but that is exactly what may happen if Republicans in Iowa follow through with a recent threat.Where was Ivanka when Donald launched his campaign? Looking after number one | Arwa MahdawiRead moreIn an interview this week with NBC News, Iowa’s Republican party chair said he would be prepared to move the state’s caucuses – the process Iowa uses to identify its preferred presidential candidate – “to Halloween” should Democrats shake up their primary schedule.Iowa has long been the first state in the nation to cast its vote in the Republican and Democratic presidential primary processes, but Democrats are exploring the idea of holding their first ballot elsewhere in 2024.Clamor has been growing in the party for a different state, with a population more representative of the US as a whole, to be given the first go, with Democratic officials in Michigan, in particular, pushing for the state to be moved up in the primary calendar.Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee made changes to its primary process, which could allow states other than Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states which have voted first since 1972, to kick off the ballot.The potential usurping of Iowa has left Republicans in the state furious.“This is the Democrats that are pulling this crap and I’m telling you right now, they don’t want to play chicken with me. This is pure, progressive, power politics,” Jeff Kaufmann, the chair of the Iowa GOP, told NBC News.“If, for some reason, California and New York dictate policy for the entire DNC and they give the middle finger to Iowa and the midwest – if that happens, we will be first,” Kaufmann said.“I’ll move this thing to Halloween if that’s what it takes.”Given the first vote is usually held in January, Kaufmann’s threat has the appearance of hyperbole, yet since Kaufmann also heads the national Republican committee, as NBC reported, that oversees its presidential schedule, he would potentially have scope to change the date of the Iowa caucuses.After changing its rules in April, in July the DNC postponed a vote on whether Iowa and New Hampshire should continue to be the first states in the calendar. According to US census data, 84% of Iowans identify as “white alone, not Hispanic or Latino”, and 89% identify the same way in New Hampshire. Nationwide, 59% of Americans identify as “white alone”, according to the census.The Michigan primary was held on 10 March in 2020, by which time only three candidates – Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard, remained in the race. Biden won the Michigan primary convincingly, and carried the state in the presidential election.Democrats in Michigan have since been lobbying to be moved forward in the calendar, and that case was strengthened by results there in the midterms. Democrats gained control of the state house and senate for the first time in 40 years, and Gretchen Whitmer retained the governorship.Going first in the primaries brings prestige and exposure, with TV channels and newspapers providing daily updates from early states for weeks, and also brings a financial boost in the depths of winter. The Daily Iowan reported that campaigns spent $7.2m in Iowa in January 2020 alone – 14.7% of the state’s entire gross domestic product for that month.TopicsDemocratsRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s act is ‘old and tired’, says his own former national security adviser

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      Trump’s act is ‘old and tired’, says his own former national security adviserJohn Bolton is latest ex-White House official to condemn former boss and says Republicans are ready for a ‘fresh face’ John Bolton, former national security adviser to Donald Trump, has described the former US president’s act as “old and tired” and said the Republican party is ready to move on to a “fresh face”.Bolton is the latest ex-White House official to condemn Trump after Republicans underperformed in this month’s midterm elections, which added to a losing streak that convinced some he is now hurting rather than helping the party.“There are a lot of reasons to be against Trump being the nominee but the one I’m hearing now as I call around the country, talking to my supporters and others about what happened on 8 November, is the number of people who have just switched Trump off in their brain,” Bolton told the Guardian.Trump campaign announcement deepens Republicans’ civil warRead more“Even if they loved his style, loved his approach, loved his policies, loved everything about him, they don’t want to lose and the fear is, given the results on 8 November, that if he got the nomination, not only would he lose the general election, but he would take an awful lot of Republican candidates down with him.”Now 74, Bolton served as US ambassador to the UN under President George W Bush in 2005-06 and was a staunch advocate of the Iraq war. He became Trump’s national security adviser in 2018 only to be fired the following year, then wrote a scathing memoir that declared the president incompetent and unfit for office.He now joins Trump’s vice-president Mike Pence, secretary of state Mike Pompeo, attorney general William Barr, UN ambassador Nikki Haley, chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and onetime ally Chris Christie in a growing rebellion among alumni making the case – overtly or subtly – that Trump has become an electoral liability.They point out that Republicans lost the House of Representatives in 2018, the presidency and Senate in 2020 and the Senate again in 2022, while gaining a smaller-than-expected majority in the House. Paul Ryan, the most recent Republican speaker of the House, blamed the Trump factor, telling ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos: “I think it’s palpable right now. We get past Trump, we start winning elections. We stick with Trump, we keep losing elections.”Last week Trump announced his third consecutive run for the White House only for his headaches to be compounded when the attorney general, Merrick Garland, named a special counsel to lead the federal investigations into his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and removal of classified documents from the White House.Trump v DeSantis: Republicans split over 2024 run and predict ‘blood on the floor’Read moreYet the 76-year-old former president still commands a chunk of fervent and significant support in the Republican base. His power and influence were evident in Republican primary elections where many of his anointed candidates prevailed over establishment figures such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming.Bolton acknowledged: “There’s no doubt Trump’s endorsement in the primary can be very valuable to a candidate in the Republican party. But relying on that endorsement or trumpeting yourself as the Trump-endorsed candidate is poisonous in the general election. So if you actually want to win elections, Trump is not the answer.“William F Buckley [the conservative author] once had a rule that in Republican primaries he supported the most conservative candidate capable of winning the general election and, under that theory, Trump loses.”Bolton said he has conducted his own polling that shows Trump’s base within the party has been declining slowly but steadily for two years.He said: “One question we asked was: do you want Trump or do you want a fresh face? I think in our last poll over 50% said they wanted a fresh face. That’s only going to continue. I personally don’t think Biden is going to end up running on the Democratic side and that’ll have an impact as well.”Pence, Pompeo and Christie are among potential challengers to Trump for the 2024 nomination but the early frontrunner is Ron DeSantis, who delivered a “red wave” to Florida when he was easily re-elected as governor. DeSantis is a former navy lawyer who served at the base in Guantánamo Bay and in Iraq.His foreign policy positions are likely to sit well with Bolton and other foreign policy hawks. DeSantis has condemned Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, expressed opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and taken a hard line on China, Cuba and Venezuela. In 2019 he reminded his followers that he had “promised to be the most pro-Israel governor in America”.Trump discussed ‘burner phones’ several times, John Bolton saysRead moreBolton said he first met DeSantis before the latter first ran for Congress in 2012. He noted that DeSantis’s roommate in Iraq was Adam Laxalt, who worked for Bolton in the Bush state department and narrowly lost an election for the Senate in Nevada earlier this month.DeSantis has “had a very successful run as governor of Florida”, he said. “He won re-election on 8 November with a big majority. A lot of people look to him as the next generation candidate. That’s one of Trump’s biggest problems – his act is old and tired now.”But Bolton, who has his own Pac and Super Pac to raise funds for Republicans, insisted he was not yet throwing his weight behind any 2024 contenders. “I would certainly be available and happy to talk to any of the candidates that wanted to talk about foreign policy and happy to help me make them all be better prepared to be the nominee.”The next primary could also expose and exacerbate a foreign policy split in the Republican party between an interventionist wing, personified by Bolton and Liz Cheney, and “America first” isolationism embodied by Trump and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has called for a halt to funding Ukraine’s fight against Russia.Bolton, founder of the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, commented: “Within the party as a whole, support for the Ukrainian government and people are overwhelming. I do plan to spend some time in the next two years working against what I would call the virus of isolationism within the Republican party to make sure it does not become a serious force.”TopicsUS politicsJohn BoltonDonald TrumpRepublicansUS elections 2024Reuse this content More

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      Tell us: how should the media cover Trump’s 2024 run?

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      Tell us: how should the media cover Trump’s 2024 run?We would like to hear from people in the US about how the media should cover Donald Trump’s candidacy Donald Trump’s announcement of a third bid for the White House renewed a conversation in newsrooms about the best way to cover his candidacy.On the one hand, the campaign of a former president who commands the loyalty of a sizable portion of the American electorate is clearly newsworthy. On the other hand, even if his lies are called out, the decision to feature conspiracy theories and demagoguery prominently in news coverage can cause real damage, as media organizations learned from Trump’s previous campaigns as well as his presidency.We want to hear your views on striking the right balance. Tell us how you think the news media should and shouldn’t be covering the former president’s campaign.We may feature some of your responses in our reporting.Share your viewsWe will only use the data you provide us for the purpose of the feature. We will delete any personal data when we no longer require it for this purpose. For more information please see our terms of service and privacy policy.If you are 18 years or over, you can get in touch by filling in the form below.Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions. One of our journalists will be in contact before we publish, so please do leave contact details.If you’re having trouble using the form, click here.TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicscalloutReuse this content More

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      Pence says FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ‘sent the wrong message’

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      Pence says FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ‘sent the wrong message’Ex-vice-president hopes prosecutors ‘give careful consideration before taking more steps’ in investigating Trump over January 6 Though he believes “no one is above the law,” former US vice-president Mike Pence says he hopes federal prosecutors “give careful consideration before they take any additional steps” in investigating Donald Trump’s role in inciting the rioters who staged the January 6 Capitol attack and tried to hang him.Pence made those remarks Sunday in an interview with the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd, in which he also said that the FBI “sent the wrong message” with its search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August to retake government secrets that were stored there without authorization.According to Pence, Trump was “repeating … what he was hearing from that gaggle of attorneys around him” before the deadly January 6 attack on the Capitol nearly two years ago, which supporters of the president at the time launched in a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to halt the certification of his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.Trump has been under congressional investigation after telling his supporters – some of whom wanted Pence to stop the certification or hang from a gallows – to “fight like hell” that day, among other things. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, on Friday appointed a special counsel to weigh charges against Trump for the Capitol attack and the government secrets at Mar-a-Lago, two days after the former president announced that he would again seek the Republican nomination for the White House.But, when asked on Sunday if he thinks Trump committed a crime in connection with the Capitol attack, Pence replied: “I don’t know if it is criminal to listen to bad advice from lawyers” who were consulting the president on efforts to sow distrust about his loss to Biden.As for the Mar-a-Lago search, Pence suggested that federal authorities had not exhausted alternative methods to recoup the secret documents in question. “There had to be many other ways to resolve those issues,” Pence told Todd.The justice department had issued a grand jury subpoena seeking all documents bearing classification markings in Trump’s possession before the Mar-a-Lago search.Trump’s lawyers produced some documents in early June in response to that subpoena. But the justice department subsequently received evidence that other classified documents remained at Mar-a-Lago, leading to the search there on 8 August.Ultimately, Pence said it sent a “wrong” and “divisive” message, particularly “to the wider world that looks to America as the gold standard”.“I want to see the credibility of the [US] justice department restored after years of politicization,” Pence added.Pence’s relatively supportive remarks for Trump cut a contrast with more critical ones that he had leveled against his former running mate in his new memoir, So Help Me God. One part of the memoir says Trump erred by failing to condemn the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, marked by a deadly police helicopter crash and the murder of a counter-protester.The book also asserts that Trump misstepped by failing to acknowledge Russian meddling in the 2016 election he won over Hillary Clinton, saying that doing so would not have cheapened the victory.Pence also responded to Trump’s latest run for the White House by telling ABC News: “I think we’ll have better choices in the future.” For his part, Pence told ABC he was giving “prayerful consideration” to his possibly competing for the Republican nomination, too.Authorities have linked up to nine deaths to the Capitol attack, including the suicides of officers who were traumatized by having to defend the grounds. More than 800 participants have been charged, including members of violent far-right groups, and many have already been convicted as well as imprisoned for their roles on that day.Pence said on Sunday he was proud that neither chamber of Congress let the Capitol attack derail the certification of the 2020 election’s outcome.“Leaders in both political parties” reached “unanimous agreement that whatever needed to be done, we needed to reconvene the Congress that day and finish our work”, Pence said.TopicsMike PenceUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      Troublemaker Trump doesn’t care about a second term – or America. What he craves is attention | Simon Tisdall

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      Troublemaker Trump doesn’t care about a second term – or America. What he craves is attentionSimon TisdallTrump says he’s in it to win it in 2024. But all he offers is disruption and division in the service of his ego, not his country For a man dismissed as a sad, bad loser who “rages at the dying of the right” while the world – and the Republicans – leave him behind, Donald Trump attracts a lot of attention. And that’s the whole point of his latest presidential bid.It’s not even certain that Trump really wants the gig. No former president has recaptured the White House for a second, non-consecutive term since the Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1893. It would take some doing. Is his heart really in it?Fact is, Trump, now 76, is work-shy and lazy. As president he didn’t pay attention to briefings or do his homework. He preferred to play golf. His constant skiving, off-the-cuff decision-making and Oval office tantrums proved he wasn’t fit for the job.Yet by launching his re-election campaign so far in advance, Trump has embarked on a marathon. It’s not principles or idealism that will sustain him. It’s not shop-worn cliches about America made “great and glorious again”.The truth is more mundane. Trump, high-handed braggart-in-chief and low-life star of multiple criminal and civil investigations, just cannot bear to be ignored. He cannot stand the thought of someone else winning. And he badly wants to avoid jail.Last week’s long-winded, fib-filled announcement of his 2024 candidacy was a reminder of Trump’s ability to fascinate even as he appals. Half-a-dozen New York Times columnists immediately felt compelled to register their lack of interest, at considerable length.[Fox News’s once slavish pundits, who have reportedly dropped him on Rupert Murdoch’s orders, visibly struggled on air to break their Trump fixation-addiction. They watched his speech from his Mar-a-Lago swamp the way rats watch a snake.Analysts have been busy explaining why he will not win again: voters are tired of lies and crude insults; the country cannot afford four more years of chaos; the failure of many Trump-backed midterm election candidates shows his appeal is fading.Big campaign donors and former allies are distancing themselves as a motley troupe of wannabe rivals advances. Even his daughter, Ivanka, a former aide, has had enough. She plans to spend more time with her other children.It’s already received wisdom on the left that the Republicans will self-destruct in a scrap for the party nomination. The most fancied king-slayer is Ron DeSantis. To channel Barack Obama, the rightwing Florida governor is the lipstick on the Trump pig.And yet, and yet … bandwagon-loads of wishful thinking cloud these calculations. Trump retains the support, mostly, of his famed “base” – the Maga core. He continues to attract torrents of individual cash donations. The politics of grievance have deep roots. DeSantis has not said he will run.And he is dusting off his election playbook, which confounded conventional wisdom in 2016. He will again cast himself as the underdog, the outsider, the only candidate who calls out corrupt Washington elites. Trump, after all, is an expert on corruption.Might this work? Yes, says commentator Kevin Williamson. Trump “is not as weak a candidate as many people might expect, or hope, him to be,” he warned. Despite all the caveats, he remains the man to beat, in pole position.Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me … Could America really fall for this vaudeville charlatan all over again? Polls suggest most voters want neither Trump nor Joe Biden in 2024. Yet if there is a rematch, who can say what will happen.Even Jeb Bush, George W’s dull-ish brother, mocked last week’s speech as “low energy”. But there’s no denying Trump, in his dog days, retains a showman’s ability to whip up a crowd, make waves and break news (fake or otherwise). He thrives on what Margaret Thatcher described as the “oxygen of publicity”.The mere fact that he is back in the running may undercut US global leadership. Coupled with the Democrats’ loss of the House of Representatives, it raises questions about Biden’s continuing authority. Biden told the world: “America is back.” Trump#2 would take it backwards.Vladimir Putin, for one, will be happy Trump is in the frame. The great appeaser is notoriously sweet on Russia’s war criminal boss. Putin and his fans, such as Hungary’s leader Viktor Orbán, hope the Maga mob will force reductions in aid for Ukraine.Autocrats and authoritarians everywhere will be rooting for a Trump comeback. His comrade-in-arms, Benjamin Netanyahu, in office again in Israel, has no time for Biden. The Saudis, having invested so much, expect a return – in both senses.The odd man out in this welcoming committee of tyrants and strongmen will be China’s president, Xi Jinping. Just the thought of a second Trump presidency is enough to wipe the smile off his face – if he ever smiled, that is.European leaders, the EU and Nato will pray it doesn’t happen. And after his sexist, discriminatory behaviour towards Theresa May, how might Trump redux treat the UK’s latest prime minister, Rishi Sunak? It hardly bears thinking about.Trump says he’s in it to win it in 2024. But that’s not the whole story. What the ultimate narcissist wants most of all is attention, preferably the uncritical, fawning variety. To stir up a storm, he will follow his tried and tested 3D formula.Some politicians offer blood, sweat and tears. Trump noisily offers disruption, distraction and division – in the service of his ego, not his country. The best, sensible course would be to ignore him. But that is not how the world works.Trump is still box office. He makes headlines. He sucks up energy. He is the nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue, a Mary Shelley monster. It’s hard to take your eyes off him, and dangerous to try. He’s not over.TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More