Since announcing his candidacy for the White House in 2024, life has not been easy for Donald Trump. Politically, the former president has faced criticism and questioning from the Republican establishment, in addition to seeing how several polls put Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ahead of him. Since November 15, his problems with the Department of Justice have also grown. A special prosecutor was appointed to handle the Mar-a-Lago case and part of his possible involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. His encounters with known antisemites and his own statements haven't helped.
Although in the Republican Party many think that Trump is capable of returning them to the White House, the voices that have questioned his decision have been more notorious. Staff from his administration such as former Vice President Mike Pence or former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper were especially critical. Esper went so far as to say that the former president "was a great asset to the Democratic Party." They aren't the only ones who have pointed out how his appearances in the home stretch were one of the main causes of the Conservatives' disappointing results in the midterms.
Ron DeSantis ahead in the polls
The defeat of Herschel Walker, another Trump-backed candidate, in the Senate race in Georgia last Tuesday has reinforced this position. In addition to the rejection of leaders, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, senators like John Cornyn or John Thune have accused the former president of hurting the party in statements to The Washington Post. Cornyn went so far as to say that "even if you capture all the Trump voters, you may be able to win a primary, but you’re not necessarily going to win a general election. And in this business, you have to win an election before you actually govern." Thune, like Pence and Esper, called for new leadership in the run-up to 2024 and even "a new message."
The former president's attacks on Ron DeSantis on the eve of the election, and again after the results were known, also generated disbelief and uncertainty among GOP voters. The Florida governor was the big winner among conservatives in the midterms and his name keeps coming up as a possible Republican electoral ticket for 2024. Far from falling for the provocations, DeSantis has let time pass, and, although this week he was asked about his possible intention to stand up to Trump in the primaries, he has not responded. The polls have done so on his behalf, which indicate the governor is the current favorite of Republican voters to run for president in 2024.
New allegations against him
On the judicial front, since he announced his candidacy, setbacks and new accusations have been never ending. As a direct result of his recently announced candidacy, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special prosecutor for the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. He will also look into the former president's alleged involvement in the 2021 Capitol attack. According to experts, the charge almost entirely separate from the Justice Department seeks primarily to "depoliticize" the conclusions Smith presents after studying the cases. However, Smith is an old acquaintance of the Republican Party. He was a senior official during Barack Obama's term in office and his administration was marked by his investigations of conservative politicians.
Last Tuesday, a New York jury found the former president's real estate company guilty of tax fraud and other crimes. Although Trump was not personally charged with any of the 17 counts, prosecutors wanted to single him out as an accomplice. In addition, Trump and his family face a much more complicated case in this city, the consequences of which, if found guilty, would be much more harmful for their business. New York Attorney General Alvin Bragg accuses them of grossly inflating the value of the company. If convicted, they could even be banned from doing business in the city.
Reviving old accusations
According to The Intercept, Bragg himself is reportedly preparing to revive a payment case in which Donald Trump's team during the 2016 presidential campaign supposedly paid a porn star in exchange for buying her silence about an alleged affair between the two. Jean Carroll also condemned the former president years later. The writer, who accused Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s sued him for defamation, after Trump denied the incident saying that Carroll "is not my type." The original lawsuit hasn't made much progress since it was made while Trump was president and argues that he was acting as president when he made those comments.
A federal appeals court hearing took place last Wednesday on whether Trump's presidential immunity includes allegations for statements he made during the Jan. 6, 2021, speech. A district judge already ruled against him in February on the three complaints filed by police officers present at the Capitol that day and Democratic representatives.
If that wasn't enough, the Supreme Court upheld the Democrat-controlled Ways and Means Committee and allowed them access to Trump's corporate tax returns for the past several years. The former president's legal stunts to delay investigations into the Mar-a-Lago papers were also rejected last week.
Posts and Controversies
To come full circle, Donald Trump's latest moves and statements are adding fuel to the fire. The former president met at his mansion with the artist formerly known as Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. Their recent antisemitic outbursts have provoked an avalanche of criticism from politicians, led by Senator Mitt Romney, who accused Trump of always being willing to "demean himself." The former president claimed that Fuentes appeared together with West without being invited by him.
It didn't help that he posted on his platform Truth Social to annul the 2020 election results to declare himself the winner or hold a new election: "A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution." Faced with retorts from conservative leaders, Trump ended up condemning being the victim of fake news. "The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES," he posted on the same social network.
