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Welcome to FiveThirtyEights politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior elections analyst): Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is running for president. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan decided not to. Sen. Tim Scott is reportedly nearing an announcement. Former Vice President Mike Pence certainly sounds like a candidate.

All of these Republicans have something in common: They dont want former President Donald Trump to be their partys nominee in 2024. But theyre clearly taking very different approaches toward accomplishing that goal. Some, like Haley, apparently think its best to face him head on; on the other hand, Hogan specifically said he wanted to avoid another multicar pileup that could potentially help Mr. Trump recapture the nomination.

So for this weeks FiveThirtyEight politics chat, were debating what the best strategy is. If youre a Republican who wants a new direction for the party, should you try to lead the party in that direction yourself? Or should you throw your support behind the non-Trump candidate who currently appears to have the best shot of winning the nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis?

alex (Alex Samuels, politics reporter): I think DeSantiss appeal to that wing of the party is that he might be their only option? No other Republican seems capable of giving Trump a run for his money at least not right now. And if you dont want a rematch of 2020, then, sure, DeSantis looks like the least of three evils (the third being another term for President Biden).

But if youre a voter who rejects Trump and his approach to politics, then why would an equally Trumpy candidate be the solution? Its easy to argue that Trump and DeSantis are two different sides of the same coin.

nrakich: So youre saying Haley/Hogan/Scott/Pence should run, Alex? And try to open up a third lane in the primary?

alex: The more the merrier, in my opinion. I understand the fear never-Trumpers have, especially given your reporting, Nathaniel, that Trump leads a multi-candidate field but would be in trouble in a two-way race against DeSantis.

I guess the flip side is: Do never-Trumpers actually want a candidate like DeSantis? Its not clear to me that he would run a wildly different primary campaign than Trump at least in terms of the message hes touting. And I cant imagine that DeSantiss own the libs culture-war messaging will appeal to the moderate wing of the GOP.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, senior elections analyst): I think two different things are in tension for Republican primary voters. If you dont want a Trump-like direction for the GOP, DeSantis isnt who you want hes largely doubling down on Trumps approach to politics while trying to put a more winning gloss on it. (Whereas Trump lost reelection in 2020 and contributed to Republicans underperformance in the 2022 midterms, DeSantis won a landslide reelection victory in Florida, which at least until recently was viewed as a clear swing state.)

But if you dont want Trump to win, DeSantis is clearly your best choice. Its still early, of course, and things could change, but early polls are decently predictive of how candidates perform in primaries, and DeSantis today is polling in the mid-to-high 20s in multi-candidate surveys. That puts him in a clear second position at this point.

And the good news for DeSantis is that most Republican voters probably want a Trumpy party, even if they choose someone else to lead it. Take Morning Consults primary poll tracker: Trump (54 percent) and DeSantis (26 percent) combine for 80 percent of the primary vote. And based on second-choice preferences, voters dont view them as intractably opposed choices, but rather as two sides of the same coin. The leading second-choice candidate for Trump voters is DeSantis with 46 percent (Pence gets 17 percent), and the leading second choice for DeSantis voters is Trump with 43 percent (Pence is at 16 percent).

So do you want a certain approach to politics or do you want to stop Trump? The latter seems more likely to bring about Trumps defeat than the former, in part because GOP primary voters prefer a Trumpian approach.

alex: I get that, Geoffrey! Never-Trumpers can make the case (as some Democrats have) that Trump is uniquely anti-democratic, so anyone who isnt Trump is marginally better. But I feel like just being slightly better than Trump wont be enough for them.

nrakich: Interesting. So theres a distinction between wanting to stop Trump vs. wanting to stop Trumpism.

geoffrey.skelley: Right. And because the GOP has been remade in Trumps image, it makes sense that most Republicans would like to choose either him again or someone like him.

alex: That said, I also think its too early to dismiss the possible alternatives to both DeSantis and Trump! Yes, DeSantis is doing well in the polls right now, but hes been slipping as of late. And theres evidence that people dont really know who he is or are still making up their minds about him. That could change, though, especially as he becomes more of a household name.

Trump, meanwhile, could self-destruct at any moment remember, he might get indicted in any number of investigations.

geoffrey.skelley: Alex, I do think theres not necessarily any harm in these other candidates getting into the race to see how things go. After all, were more than nine months away from actual voting in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But if Republicans remain worried about Trump damaging the party in the general election and want to rally to one candidate, the also-rans need to get out of the way by late 2023.

This could definitely change, but Trump holds a pretty clear lead in primary polls that included at least him, DeSantis, Pence and Haley. So the fears that some Republicans have about Trump winning with plurality support once we get to the actual voting are certainly well-founded. After all, he did it in 2016.

But its also not a given that DeSantis can beat him head to head. While DeSantis briefly took a slight lead in polls that only included the two of them just after the midterm elections, Trump has regained a clear edge there, too.

However, DeSantis trails Trump by a bit more than 15 percentage points head-to-head, versus more than 20 points across the multi-candidate polls. So thats an argument in favor of getting out of the way if you want to derail Trump.

alex: Yeah, I think there might be a path to the nomination albeit a narrow one for candidates like Haley and Scott, who have been somewhat measured in how they talk about the former president. But I dont think theres a path for folks like Hogan or former Rep. Liz Cheney, who have openly denounced Trump. (I could make the same argument against Pence, too.)

nrakich: Yeah, Hogan hasnt polled above 1 percent in any national poll this year (one of which was taken after he announced he was not running). So what would have been the argument for him to run?

geoffrey.skelley: To me, the reason for someone like Hogan or Cheney to run is not to win. Thats not gonna happen. Its to make the case for a different sort of Republican Party. Its certainly a losing battle right now, but despite the short-term nature of politics, arguments about the direction of political parties are won over the course of decades, not years.

Just consider how long it took for the conservative wing of the GOP to truly capture the party. Sure, the party nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964, but then you get Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Its not until Ronald Reagan wins in 1980 that its clear that conservatives have taken over the GOP.

alex: Would someone like Hogan or Cheney also include Scott and Haley, Geoff? Or do you think they occupy a different lane?

geoffrey.skelley: I definitely view Scott and Haley as different from Hogan or Cheney. Scott and Haley have largely avoided being overly critical of Trump, whereas Hogan and Cheney have been publicly critical of Trump. Cheney voted to impeach Trump in his second impeachment trial and lost her primary because of it. Hogan supported that impeachment, too.

nrakich: Yeah, being anti-Trump like Hogan or Cheney puts a ceiling on your support in a GOP primary. But being kinda Trump-neutral means you could, theoretically, steal some of that support from Trump or DeSantis.

alex: Running for president also helps raise your profile! And its possible, too, that Scott and Haley (neither of whom is super well known) either want to lay the groundwork for a presidential run in 2028 or 2032 and/or are running for vice president.

I think that former point is especially true for someone like Scott. But I really hate the running for vice president line, as I think its often used in a cheap way to marginalize both women and candidates of color.

geoffrey.skelley: And to get back to the it doesnt hurt to run at this point argument, DeSantis remains at least somewhat unproven. What if he pulls a 2012 Rick Perry and has a really rough debate performance that casts doubt on his ability to truly challenge Trump for the nomination? You dont know until youre in it.

nrakich: I think there are three reasons why DeSantis could be weaker than he seems. Hes unproven on the national stage, hes been slipping in the polls and the, uh ... whats the third one?

geoffrey.skelley: Haha, Nathaniel! Yeah, I think if theres another question about DeSantis, its his ability to play to the audience on the stump or in a crowd. I do think some of the coverage weve seen of that is frankly overwrought and just the media looking for anything to grab onto as everyone waits for DeSantis to announce. To be fair, it also reflects a higher level of scrutiny of DeSantis as a national candidate. Still, its easier to write that story than dig into the nuts and bolts of things like DeSantiss dont say gay legislation in Florida. But there could be something to it.

nrakich: OK, so I admit, I went into this chat thinking that we would conclude it was a fools errand for non-Trump-or-DeSantis Republicans to jump into the presidential race. But you guys have convinced me that it actually doesnt hurt so much if your goal is to move the party away from Trumpism.

But what if all you care about is stopping Trump himself? (Like, say, if you think Trump would lose the general election to Biden but another Republican wouldnt.) In that case, isnt it pretty clear that everyone else should get out of DeSantiss way?

geoffrey.skelley: Come fall, if polls arent too different from where they are now, then yes. Someone polling at like 5 percent in national polls in November 2023 aint winning this thing.

But its also on DeSantis to win over voters who like Trumpism but are ready to give someone else the job of winning the presidency because theyre worried about Trump losing or because they like what DeSantis has been doing in Florida. With DeSantis polling well as the second choice among Trump voters, you can see how that path could develop.

And if the people who are supporting the Haleys, Pences and Scotts of the world rally to the Trump alternative, thatll also help DeSantis. As Henry Olsen has noted at The Washington Post, much could depend on where an important group of GOP primary voters the somewhat conservatives end up moving once we get beyond the early states. Theyve traditionally decided Republican nominees. In 2016, they opted for Trump over former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (too moderate) and Sen. Ted Cruz (too conservative). This time around, it looks like very conservative voters may prefer Trump. So will somewhat conservatives latch onto DeSantis as a leading alternative? They could.

alex: Yeah, I think the argument for someone in that camp is that DeSantis doesnt have Trumps baggage, but his credentials are just as if not more ideologically conservative. So in that case, sure, why not DeSantis! And hes currently the only Republican whos competitive with Trump in the polls, so theres an easy argument for why hes the best non-Trump Trump opponent.

nrakich: Are there any non-electoral reasons for anti-Trump candidates to keep their powder dry?

[Editors note: Several minutes pass. ]

alex: Seems like everyone jumped in the more the merrier camp!

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Should Anti-Trump Republicans Clear The Field For DeSantis? - FiveThirtyEight

AManhattan grand juryinvestigating former President Donald Trump's role in a"hush money" paymentreconvened Monday and heard testimony from a central witness, according to sources familiar with the matter. But by the end of the day, the Manhattan district attorney had not communicated with Trump's legal team, according to Joe Tacopina, one of the former president's attorneys. Another Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, also said there was no communication from the D.A. Monday evening.

David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media, Inc. (AMI) and publisher of The National Enquirer, was spotted entering the building where the grand jury was meeting and testified before the panel Monday afternoon, two sources said.

click to expand

Just weeks before the 2016 election, Pecker played a key role in connecting a lawyer for adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claimed she had an affair with Trump, with Michael Cohen, Trump's then-attorney. Cohen ultimately secured a non-disclosure agreement from Daniels in exchange for $130,000.

AMI was the parent company of The National Enquirer. In August 2016, the magazine bought the rights to the story of a woman who said she had an affair with Trump, but the outlet never published her account. The company lateradmittedthe "catch and kill" tactic was designed to suppress the story and help Trump's election prospects. Pecker was CEO of AMI until 2020.

The grand jury last convened to discuss the Trump investigation on March 20, when it heard from attorney Robert Costello at the request of Trump's legal team.

Trump, who is again running for president, assailed the investigation during a campaign rally Saturday in Waco, Texas, claiming he's under investigation "for something that is not a crime, not a misdemeanor, not an affair." He has denied the affair and all allegations of wrongdoing in relation to the payment.

Trump previously incorrectly predicted his arrest would be last Tuesday, March 22, calling for protests that day. Tuesday came and went without an arrest, and with little unrest beyond a sparse group of supporters who rallied intermittently across the street from Manhattan Criminal Court.

A significant law enforcement presence has descended upon the Lower Manhattan neighborhood surrounding the court and district attorney's offices, with police barricading sidewalks and removing garbage cans around the buildings. Trump has repeatedly lashed out on his social media site, including warning that an indictment would lead to "potential death & destruction." He also posted an altered image on Truth Social depicting himself holding a baseball bat next to a photo of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The post was later removed.

There have been at least two hoax bomb threats made to Manhattan courts in the week since Trump's call for protests, and on Friday a mailroom employee at the District Attorney's Office in Manhattan opened an envelope addressed to Bragg that contained a white powder and a note. The powder was later determined not to be dangerous.

"Alvin, I am going to kill you," the note read, a law enforcement source said.

After the threat, 177 former federal prosecutors signed on to a statement condemning threats against Bragg and his office.

"As former prosecutors, we denounce efforts to intimidate the Manhattan District Attorney and we call upon all to support and protect prosecutorial independence and the rule of law," they wrote.

It is unclear when the grand jury will be asked to vote on a possible indictment.

In early March, Bragg's office invited Trump to appear before the grand jury a move that in New York often signifies prosecutors are nearing an indictment decision. The investigation appears to be focused on whether the Daniels payment involved the falsification of business records and violated state campaign finance law.

The Manhattan case is one of at least four criminal investigations involving Trump. In Fulton County, Georgia, a special grand jury interviewed 75 witnesses as part of its six-month-long inquiry into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost.

A report by the Georgia grand jury was given in January to Fulton County Fani Willis, who has not announced any charging decisions related to that investigation.

In Washington, D.C., on Friday, Trump attorney Evan Corcoran testified for more than three hours before a federal grand jury convened by special counsel Jack Smith. Corcoran testified after a federal judge ruled certain of his claims of attorney-client privilege were invalid under the "crime-fraud exception."

Smith is investigating potential mishandling of documents with classified markings as well as Trump's role in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in connection with all of the probes, and accused investigators of conducting a "witch hunt."

Trending News

Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at KatesG@cbsnews.com or grahamkates@protonmail.com

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Manhattan grand jury investigating Trump hears from key witness David Pecker - CBS News

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

At his rally in Waco this weekend, Donald Trump stood at attention as a choir of jailed January 6 rioters sang an anthem of sedition, and media outlets barely blinked.

First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

Almost 30 years after a cult leader caused a disaster in Waco, Trump rallied his own political cultand the location cannot be a coincidencein that same Texas city. The Waco tent revival featured the usual Trumpian cast of grifters, carnies, and misfits, including the fan favorites Mike Lindell and Ted Nugent. Most of the former presidents speech was, of course, about himself and his many grievances, and the crowd reportedly began to thin out somewhat early.

And yet, in Wacothe first rally of Trumps 2024 campaignTrump proved he is still capable of doing shocking things that once would have been unthinkable. As the Associated Press reported:

With a hand over his heart, Trump stood at attention when his rally opened with a song called Justice for All performed by a choir of people imprisoned for their roles in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Some footage from the insurrection was shown on big screens displayed at the rally site as the choir sang the national anthem and a recording played of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

In other words: A former president, a man once entrusted with the Constitutions Article II powers as our chief magistrate and the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world, an elected official who held our survival in his hands with the codes to our nuclear arsenal, considered it an honor to be serenaded by a group of violent insurrectionists who are sitting in jail for offenses against the government and people of the United States.

Trumps voice was not only featured on this song; he actually volunteered to provide a recording for it. I know that many people, after years of this mad-king routine, simply do not want to process anything with the words Donald Trump in it. I dont blame you. But lets not look away: In Waco, Trump embraced a creepy mash-up of the national anthem, USA chants, and his own voice, and then proceeded for some 90 minutes to make clear that he is now irrevocably all in with the seditionists, the conspiracy theorists, the Trump or death fanatics, the Vladimir Putin fanboysthe whole appalling lot of them.

And yet, a day later, the story of Trump standing at attention for the January 6 choir has begun to fade from coverage. How, you might wonder, is this not still on every news site, every broadcast? To be fair, the AP called it an extraordinary display. The New York Times called the playing of the song a new twist. Perhaps ironically, one of the most candid reactions came from Foxs Brian Kilmeade, who called Trumps use of January 6 footage at the rally insane. Many media outlets used a picture of Trump with his hand over his heart, as I have done here. None of that is enough.

A thought experiment might help. Imagine if, say, Barack Obama held a rally and stood at attention as a group of anti-constitutional riotersperhaps people who had called for attacking police officers and lynching top officials of the United Statesused his voice as a motif while singing from prison to honor him. You know exactly what would happen: That one moment would dominate the news cycle until the last star in the galaxy burned out. It would define Obama for the rest of his life. (If you doubt this, remember that Obama was caught on a hot mic telling thenRussian President Dmitry Medvedev that hed have more flexibility to negotiate after the 2012 electiona completely ordinary if somewhat unwise thing to sayand we had to hear about it for years.)

But we are worn out on Trump. Weve simply packed all of his behavior into a barrel, labeled it as generic toxic waste, and pushed it to the side, hoping that someone will take it away and bury it far from civilization.

Theres another reason, however, were not ringing more alarm bells. Too many people are afraid of amplifying Trump, including media members who still insist on treating a violent insurrectionist movement as if its a normal political party. I have consistently argued for amplifying every traitorous and unhinged thing Trump says, but others have their doubts: Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, cited the disinformation expert Whitney Phillips to caution me that sunlight disinfects, but it can also make things grow.

I think this was a more pressing concern in 2016, when Trump was the beneficiary of the so-called earned media that can result from outrageous statements and stunts. I still think focusing on Trump and holding him accountable for his statements was the right thing to do, but I agree that too often during the 2016 campaign, he got away with being ridiculous, because he was not taken seriously enough as a threat to democracy.

In 2023, however, Trump is no longer a novelty. The man is a former president and a top candidate for his old job. Merely fact-checking him or tut-tutting about his extraordinary behavior would, I agree, normalize him, so lets not do that. Instead, both journalists and ordinary citizens should ensure that everyone knows exactly what Trump is doing and saying, in all of its fetid and vile detail.

Moments like the Waco rally should be all over the news, for three reasons.

First, Trump fatigue is real, but the personality cult around Trump avoids it by cherry-picking what Trump says and does. Putting Trump on blast isnt going to convert new people; if anything, we learned from Trumps COVID press conferences as president that he does a lot of damage to himself by talking too much. People in his own party tried to get him to stop doing those bizarre performances, and he finally listened to them.

Second, Trump and his minions, especially elected Republicans, are experts at pretending that things didnt happen the way we saw them. Ask a GOP official about Trumps offensive statements, and youll likely get I didnt see that, I dont read his tweets, Ill have to check into that, and other squirts of verbal helium. Media and citizens alike should hold those elected representatives and other officeholders to account. Ask them point-blank if they support what Trump said and if they will support him as the nominee of their party.

Third, we need to confront the reality that Trump is now on track to win the nomination yet again. In 2016 and 2020, I thought we were facing the most important elections in modern American history, but that was before Trump incited an insurrection and invited every violent kook in the nation to ride to his defense. Fine, I stand corrected: 2024 is epochally important. Trump has left no doubt that he is a violent authoritarian who intends to reject any election that does not restore him to power, that he will pardon scores of criminals, and that he will never willingly leave office. This should be said every day, in every medium.

If we are to walk ourselves back into an authoritarian nightmare, lets at least do it without any pretenses.

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Sick All the Time

By Elizabeth Bruenig

Winter is over, and what a wretched one it was. There came a point in the season when everyone in our house was sick. I stood at the top of the stairs one cold morning, gazing down blearily at the pile of mail and magazines that had accumulated by the door, knowing there were dishes dumped in the sink to match and laundry heaped in the hampers as well. I thought of Henry Knighton, a medieval cleric who witnessed the Black Deaths scouring of Europe. I once read his firsthand account of the sheep and cattle that went wandering over fields where the harvest had rotted on the vine, crops and livestock returning to wilderness amid the great diminishing of human life. I now reigned over my own plagued realm, having lost this latest confrontation with nature.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

Read. Hua Hsus memoir, Stay True.

I knew exactly what was going to happen (its written on the book jacket) and still felt totally unprepared for the emotional force of it, our senior editor Amy Weiss-Meyer says.

Watch. The Season 4 premiere of Succession.

The episode, which aired last night on HBO, offered familiar beats but also a hint of a new direction. (And keep reading this newsletter for another reason to watch!)

Play our daily crossword.

The final season of HBOs hit series Succession got underway last night. I am a fan of the show, but I am especially interested in how the saga of the Roy family ends, because Im in it.

Yes, your humble correspondent landed a (very) small part in the series, as a pundit at the Roy familys fictional ATN network. The episodes I was in had some pretty intense plot developments, but of course, I cannot share with you what happens, not least because I dont even know myself. My part is a scripted character, but as is often the case on such a show, theres a lot of security around the plot, and I dont know what happened before or after I left the set. It was all great fun, and it was an honor to be able to watch some of the main cast at work. (If you think acting is easy, just spend a few days watching professionals do it.) When the season is winding down, I will write more about this fascinating experience; in the meantime, tune in and join mewell, a character sort of like meat ATN.

Tom

Isabel Fattal contributed to this newsletter.

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Trump Sings a Song of Sedition - The Atlantic

Former President Donald Trump returned to Fox News on Monday night and aired a host of grievances about investigations he's facing, mail-in voting and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in his first interview with the network since legal filings showed network leaders privately condemning him.

There was no hint of the acrimony detailed in those communications, made public as part of Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, spoke for nearly an hour with prime-time host Sean Hannity, long one of his most outspoken Fox News backers.

Trump found a welcome environment for his attempt to tie a potential indictment he faces in New York City to the 2020 election-rigging myth that led to his supporters' attack on the Capitol, defend rioters who were arrested in its aftermath and say he and DeSantis his chief rival for the GOP presidential nomination were never friends.

"It's a new way of cheating in elections," Trump said when asked about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's hush money probe. "It's called election interference."

On March 18, Trump predicted he would be arrested in three days, which turned out to be wrong. But he has shared more heated rhetoric about a potential indictment in recent days, including warning of "potential death and destruction" should he be indicted.

Trump said Monday he was not calling for violence and added that his Truth Social post of an article featuring a split photo of him holding a baseball bat opposite Bragg was done unknowingly.

"We didnt see pictures. We put up a story that was very exculpatory, very good story from the standpoint of what were talking about," he said.

He expressed relatively little emotion when he was asked about how he was handling the chance of arrest, later shifting in his answer to a riff involving the supposed emptying of South American prisons and "mental institutions."

"Well, I deal with it," he said of a possible indictment. "Were dealing with very dishonest people. Were dealing with thugs. Were dealing with people I actually believe that hate our country."

Elsewhere in the conversation, Trump promoted the "Justice for All" song, which features a choir of men incarcerated for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol singing the national anthem, interposed with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Trump began his rally Saturday in Waco, Texas, by playing a video version of the recording, which also featured images of the insurrection.

"The J6 is beating Taylor Swift," Trump said, pointing to the song's success on a variety of music charts. "Its Donald Trump and the J-Sixers on iTunes and on Amazon and on Billboard, which is the big deal. No. 1, Donald Trump.

"Thats a tribute to the fact that people feel the J6 people have been very unfairly treated," he added.

Reflecting on some of his personnel decisions during his presidency, Trump said he "may have made a mistake" in choosing FBI Director Christopher Wray and added he "didn't like" Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

But Trump's saved his harshest criticism for DeSantis.

"Not friends," Trump said of their relationship before DeSantis became a presidential prospect. "I didn't know him well."

Trump described DeSantis as a "desperate" politician who, he claimed, came to him with "tears in his eyes" asking for an endorsement in a 2018 primary race for governor against Adam Putnum, then the Florida agriculture commissioner.

As Trump sees it, DeSantis owes him for his good fortune and shouldn't run against him in 2024.

"I helped a lot of people get elected," he said, adding: "But some I got in. Ron, I got in. He was losing. There was no way. It was over. He was dead. He was going to drop out. He was gone."

A DeSantis spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. DeSantis' polls far and away as the second-most-favored contender in the GOP's 2024 field, but amid intense attacks by Trump, some donors and allies have questioned whether he is ready for what would be a bruising primary fight. Trump has increasingly focused on DeSantis since he wrongly predicted his arrest date.

The interview was the first Trump has conducted with a prime-time Fox News anchor since September.

After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said in emails that the network wanted to make Trump a nonperson and was pivoting as fast as possible," recent legal filingsas part of Dominion's lawsuit revealed.

But Trump's team has felt Fox's coverage of him this year is an improvement over its coverage in 2016, the last time he faced a seriously contested primary.

They were openly hostile to him in 2016," an adviser said this month. "Theyre not as openly hostile" now.

Allan Smith is a political reporter for NBC News.

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Trump returns to Fox News for interview with Sean Hannity - NBC News

Donald Trump

Trump has resorted to incendiary rhetoric to deter investigations and to rile up his base, experts say, and shows no sign of letting up

Tue 28 Mar 2023 05.00 EDT

Donald Trumps demagogic attacks on prosecutors investigating criminal charges against him are aimed at riling up his base and could spark violence, but show no signs of letting up as a potential indictment in at least one case looms, say legal experts.

At campaign rallies, speeches and on social media Trump has lambasted state and federal prosecutors as thugs and claimed that two of them who are Black are racist, language designed to inflame racial tension.

He has also used antisemitic tropes by referring to a conspiracy of globalists and the influence of billionaire Jewish financier George Soros.

Trumps drive to undercut four criminal inquiries that he faces is reaching a fever pitch as a Manhattan district attorneys inquiry looks poised to bring charges against Trump over his key part in a $130,000 hush money payment in 2016 to adult film star Stormy Daniels with whom he allegedly had an affair.

In his blitz to deter and obfuscate two of the criminal investigations, Trump has resorted to verbal assaults on two Black district attorneys in Manhattan and Georgia labeling them as racist, even as he simultaneously battles to win the White House again.

In a broader attack on the four state and federal investigations at a Texas rally on Saturday Trump blasted the thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system, while on his Truth Social platform last week he warned of possible death and destruction if hes charged in the hush money inquiry.

But now Trumps incendiary attacks against the federal and state inquiries is prompting warnings that Trumps unrelenting attacks on prosecutors could fuel violence, as he did on January 6 with bogus claims that the 2020 was stolen from him and a mob of his backers attacked the Capitol leading to at least five deaths.

Trumps incendiary rhetoric, amplified through his social media postings and his high decibel fearmongering in Texas, pose clear physical dangers to prosecutors and investigators, said former acting chief of the fraud section at the justice department Paul Pelletier. With Trumps actions promoting the January 6 insurrection serving as a cautionary tale, the potential for violent reactions to any of his charges cannot be understated.

Ex-prosecutors see Trump reverting to tactics hes often deployed in legal and political battles.

Trumps invective say experts wont deter prosecutors as they separately weigh fraud, obstruction and other charges related to January 6 and other issues, but echo scare tactics hes used before as in his two impeachments, and may help Trumps chances of becoming the Republican nominee by angering the base which could influence primary outcomes.

None of these accusations about the motives of prosecutors, however, will negate the evidence of Trumps own crimes. A jury will focus on the facts and the law, and not any of this name calling. The Trump strategy may work in the court of public opinion, but not in a court of law, said Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for the eastern district of Michigan.

That may explain why Trump has received more political cover from three conservative House committee chairs, who joined his effort to intimidate Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, by launching investigations to obtain his records and testimony, threats that Bragg and legal experts have denounced as political stunts and improper.

The legal stakes for Trump are enormous, and unprecedented for a former president, as the criminal inquiries have been gaining momentum with more key witnesses who have past or present ties to Trump testifying before grand juries, and others getting subpoenas.

Two investigations led by special counsel Jack Smith are separately looking into possible charges against Trump for obstructing an official proceeding and defrauding the US government as he schemed with top allies to block Joe Biden from taking office, and potential obstruction and other charges tied to Trumps retention of classified documents after he left office.

Further, Fulton county Georgia district attorney, Fani Willis, has said decisions are imminent about potentially charging Trump and others who tried to overturn Joe Bidens win there in 2020 with erroneous claims of fraud.

Much of the investigations work has involved a special grand jury that reportedly has recommended several indictments, with a focus on Trumps high pressure call on 2 January 2021 to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger beseeching him to just find 11,780 votes to help block Joe Bidens win there.

Trump has denied all wrong doing and denounced the inquiries as witch hunts.

Little wonder though that Trumps squadron of lawyers has lately filed a batch of motions in Georgia and Washington DC with mixed success to slow prosecutors as they have moved forward in gathering evidence from key witnesses and mull charges against Trump.

Blustering in court or in the media about the supposed bias or racism of the Fulton county and Manhattan county prosecutors will not convince a court to remove a democratically-elected prosecutor, and certainly the Republicans in the House of Representatives have no legal authority ability to influence the course of criminal justice in New York state proceedings, said Fordham law professor and ex-prosecutor in New Yorks southern district Bruce Green.

Green stressed: None of Trumps moves, such as calling prosecutors racists, are likely to throw any of the prosecutors off their game: prosecutors tend to be focused, determined and thick-skinned.

Likewise, ex-US attorney in Georgia Michael Moore told the Guardian the Trump attacks on the two black prosecutors are completely baseless. The charges of racism against the prosecutors is more of an indication of the weakness of his claims than most anything else he has said.

Moore scoffed too at the moves by Trumps House Republican allies.

Its rich to me that the Republicans in the House claim to be the party of limited government, but as soon as they get in power and look like they might lose another election, they immediately use their big government power to meddle in a matter that purely belongs to the local jurisdiction.

NYU law professor Stephen Gillers sees similar dynamics at play in Trumps tactics.

Trump cannot stop the judicial process, although he can try to slow it. But he can undermine its credibility through his charges and by mobilizing his supporters. I see what hes doing now as aimed at them, just as he tried to discredit the election returns in their eyes and anger them with baseless charges over the steal.

The weakness of Trumps legal moves was revealed in two court rulings in DC requiring testimony before grand juries from former top aides including ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the January 6 inquiry, and one of his current lawyers Evan Corcoran in the classified documents case.

The two rulings should give a good boost to the special counsel in his separate investigations of Trumps efforts to overturn his 2020 loss on January 6 when Congress met to certify Joe Bidens win about which Meadows must now testify, and Trumps retention of classified documents at Mar a Lago after he left the White House about which Corcoran has to testify.

As the four investigations intensify, more aggressive moves by Trump and his lawyers to derail potential charges in Georgia, Manhattan and from the special counsel are expected before, as well as after, any charges may be filed.

If I were on the prosecution teams in Manhattan or Georgia, I would expect Trump to assert every defense he can think of, including accusing the prosecutors of misconduct, McQuade said.

A judge on Monday ordered Fani Willis to respond by 1 May to the Trump teams motion seeking to bar her from further investigating or charging Trump, and wants all testimony from some 75 witnesses, including Meadows and Trumps former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, before the special grand jury rejected.

The judges order was in response to a Trump legal motion that McQuade said appears to be baseless.

Former Watergate prosecutor Philip Lacovara told the Guardian that Trumps lawyers are deploying different legal tactics in the investigations.

The Georgia strategy is partly a strategy of delay, in which the Trump team is raising dozens and dozens of objections, many of which are specious, in the hope that one will be sufficient to work on appeal and to keep him out of jail, Lacovara said.

In Manhattan, he added, theyre trying to create the impression that this is a highly visible political stunt to exclude Trump from running.

That tactic could help in trying to pollute the jury pool since a hung jury would be good for Trump. All he needs is one juror who believes this is all a concocted plot.

Former DoJ officials and experts expect Trump and his lawyers will keep up a frenzied stream of hyperbolic attacks and legal actions.

This is more of what we saw during the election, said former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer who served in the George HW Bush administration. He throws up gibberish and obstruction.

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Trumps verbal assaults pose risks to prosecutors and could fuel violence - The Guardian US