In a peculiar manner, former President Donald Trump stands to gain from his persecutors’ most recent act of revenge.
On Monday, a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia indicted President Trump and 18 other individuals on offenses related to the 2020 presidential election. The former president and his co-defendants must surrender by August 25.
The first Republican presidential debate is scheduled for August 23. Fox News will broadcast the Milwaukee debate.
Trump is unlikely to participate. He has stated that he will not sign a required oath to support the winner of the Republican primary, and he has little incentive to attend given his overwhelming lead in the surveys.
Tuesday on “CBS Mornings,” Ed O’Keefe, senior White House and political correspondent for CBS News, mentioned an opportunity for Trump. O’Keefe suggested that the former president could take attention from his rivals by surrendering on August 23.
“Where would you rather be that day, in Milwaukee with everybody else or in that Atlanta courtroom? He knows that this has completely sucked oxygen away from everybody else running,” O’Keefe said, according to CBS News.
“So now he can potentially use this to his advantage even more,” O’Keefe added.
There will be cameras in the courtroom in Georgia, reports @edokeefe, marking a significant difference from the previous arraignments of former Pres. Donald Trump.
“That has a huge effect on the public perception of all of this,” says O’Keefe. https://t.co/jYYgEuy23W pic.twitter.com/zaEE0NVKm6
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) August 15, 2023
The theory is plausible, but not for the reason he implied.
If Trump decides to surrender himself in Georgia on the day of the debate, he will do so so as not to draw attention away from the other Republican presidential candidates. In fact, the most recent RealClearPolitics poll average indicates that the former president has a nearly 40-point margin over his closest opponent.
Instead, Trump surrenders on August 23 for one excellent reason and one transcendent reason.
First, he has no reason to feel anything other than contempt for Fox News executives. If he can harm the network by distracting viewers from the Republican debate, he will do so.
Second, and far more essential, he should appear in Georgia on August 23 for the sake of posterity.
Untainted by contemporary passions, our descendants will marvel at the dissonance. By its very appellation, one event promotes political discourse. The other party seeks to stifle it.
A former president was indicted by a criminal cartel for making statements with which cartel members disagreed. Future Americans may not read the indictment — who among us can even now stomach reading these absurd documents in their entirety? — but they should observe the contrast on August 23.
Indeed, we do not reflect enough on the past. Obviously, this statement has broader implications, but I am referring to this specific instance.
Regardless of the date Trump surrenders, it will be his fourth arraignment since March 30.
Surely no one could consider any of this normal.
However, they do. The scheduled presidential debates continue. O’Keefe analyzes how a former president’s fourth indictment may impact a primary. It appears unreal.
We can rest assured that our descendants will not view these events through the lens of opinion polls and political strategy.
Instead, they will realize that something went terribly awry in the world of their ancestors.