For the past week or so, we’ve been hostage to another strange Trump news cycle, a flashback to the many we lived through in the half dozen years between his escalator ride at Trump Tower to his helicopter exit from the White House. For a while, it looked like Donald Trump was out of our lives and retreating to his own Palm Elba. Now all of a sudden everything is 2016 again and we’re glued to CNN news alerts.
After initial reports of possible charges in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, the “Trump arrest” news cycle truly kicked into gear early on the morning of March 18 with post on Truth Social: “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” Two hours later, a spokesman said the former president had not written his post with direct knowledge of the timing of any arrest, while adding, “President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system.”
But it didn’t matter that Trump’s spokesman seemed to walk back Trump’s “truth,” as posts on his Truth Social platform are ironically called, or that “TUESDAY” (March 21) came and went with no indictment from the Manhattan DA’s office. (The grand jury is reportedly meeting again Monday.) None of those things mattered, as Trump, yet again, hijacked the news cycle—this time by announcing his impending arrest. As The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser wrote of this chaotic moment: “The political class’s collective capacity for analyzing and digesting events that have not yet occurred, which still might not occur, and whose details are presumably crucial to understanding how they will play out, was on full display.”
Here we get to the central dilemma of covering Trump. By virtue of the fact he was president, and is currently leading the 2024 Republican pack, much of what Trump says and does is arguably newsworthy. But Trump is at best a bad actor and at worst a complete sociopath, known to “flood the zone with shit” in the immortal words of Steve Bannon. So the idea that we, in the media, should take his word for it when he makes some wild claim seems at best misguided.
Though it would be impossible to ignore a pending indictment of a former president, could the breathless, nonstop indictment watch have been avoided? Theoretically, yes? But there is a muscle memory many of us have from covering Trump, a kind of Stockholm syndrome from the constant nonstop flood of news. And it’s easy to fall back into old patterns.
Trump, as president, was an assignment editor from hell, driving a news cycle over everything from preposterous ideas, like buying Greenland, to terrifying ones, like bombing North Korea. By virtue of the fact that Trump was president, his tweets, his utterances, and his weird foibles led to countless headlines and cable news chyrons. Just as Trump was able to reclaim his role as assignment editor, another familiar story emerged: Republicans holding themselves hostage to Trump.
The GOP was presented with yet another opportunity to decouple itself from the albatross that had significantly cost their party in three straight elections. But instead of using a possible indictment as a way to rid themselves of the former guy, Republicans have been literally falling all over each other to defend him, despite not being sure what, if any, charges will be filed. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy warned of “politically motivated prosecutions,” while Republican defenders hit airwaves.
On CNN’s State of the Union, Kentucky congressman and frequent Trump defender James Comer wasn’t sure what he was defending Trump from on Sunday morning, but he seemed sure Trump was innocent. “Are you arguing that people who commit business crimes are not committing crimes?” asked CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Is this a business crime? We’re talking about a federal election crime,” Comer responded. “My understanding,” Tapper said, “is that he’s being investigated for falsifying business records.”
The Republican rush to defend Trump was so deeply embarrassing you’d think it might have led to a moment of GOP introspection. But alas, the crew that is always so worried about the weaponization of the federal government used its power in Congress to target Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg even as his office has yet to charge Trump with anything. Comer and another Fox News frequent flier, Jim Jordan, wrote to Bragg: “You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority.” With Trump fully in the media spotlight, and Republicans rallying behind him, even critics acknowledged how the former president could benefit. “This indictment is a billion dollar gift-in-kind from Democrats to Trump’s ‘24 campaign,” former representative Peter Meijer tweeted.
Trump reportedly raised $1.5 million over his “indictment” in just three days and has enjoyed a polling bump (while Ron DeSantis’s recent performance on the national stage has worried GOP donors). Never one to let a possible scandal go unexploited, Trump used the potential indictment as a centerpiece of his Waco, Texas, rally on Saturday, telling the crowd: “You will be vindicated and proud. The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited, and totally disgraced.” At one point, Trump put his hand on his heart during the playing of a rendition of the national anthem as sung by the J6 Choir, a group of imprisoned rioters, while behind him a large screen played footage from the insurrection at the Capitol. The weekend rally also happened to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the government standoff in Waco with doomsday sect the Branch Davidians.
Trump’s stance of being anti-anyone-who-doesn’t-support-him was pretty clear to anyone watching. As I write this, Trump still hasn’t been indicted but he has used the threat of any possible consequences for his actions to once again become the main character of the news cycle. He’s even slated to return Monday night to Fox News, a recent target of his ire due to its glowing DeSantis coverage. It seems very likely that Trump can parlay this main-character status into another GOP presidential nomination. Like global warming, Trump is on the horizon again and it feels like we are powerless to stop it.