June 5 – What will the 2024 presidential race for the United States really look like? Theories abound as to who will make it to the finish line next November, which will be here before we know it.
On the Republican side, the main-hitters include Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.
Now it looks like Chris Christie and Mike Pence will throw their hats into the ring later this week.
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “The field just keeps growing.”
The governors of North Dakota and Georgia might also be coming into the race, too.
Barkdoll said, “Very, very crowded field. I’m not sure the lane some of these people see. They all believe Trump has some legal peril and it’s really going to open this thing up as we get late into the summer, but Trump is way ahead in all of the polls. The other interesting thing over the weekend, the RNC announced the criteria of that first Republican presidential debate is going to be in August in Milwaukee. They announced what the criteria will be to get on that stage. Trump so far is indicating he does not intend to participate.”
One of the requirements is a loyalty pledge.
Barkdoll continued, “If you participate in the debate, you must agree to endorse the eventual Republican nominee and remember going back to 2016, Trump was the one guy on the stage that refused to do that. And I think it actually worked very it worked out very well for him. So that’s another thing to keep an eye on as all these candidates keep getting into the race.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM noted, “I’m so cynical and I don’t know which aspect of cynicism to even talk about right this moment. I still think there’s this weird undercurrent of a push to just have Trump be the nominee. And of course, we keep saying unless something very odd happens that keeps him from, you know, legally being able to move forward, all these people joining in the race only assure even more that he will be the nominee. But then on the other hand, you’re hearing well, Chris Christie’s getting into it because he’s the one person willing to attack Trump, you know, full on to try to make him look bad. So if that’s the case, but it doesn’t seem like that is going to make much difference if there’s so many candidates that the loyalties are divided so much that Trump will be the primary choice.”
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM suggested, “Chris Christie doesn’t have any bandwidth though.”
Barkdoll agreed, “No, and I think the more diluted this field becomes, the more it helps Trump. I mean, we know from before Christie did not run a very effective campaign. I don’t know where the lane is for him. Mike Pence, oddly enough, it looks like he’s going to come out this week running to the right of Donald Trump. One of the campaign hits is going to be Trump has become too liberal on various issues. So that’s kind of an interesting tactic, but I don’t know how Pence separates himself from Trump in as much that he was obviously part of the administration for those four years.”
James Comey, former director of the FBI came out yesterday to back Joe Biden for president.
So far, the Democrats look like they may potentially have Biden and RFK Jr. in the race.
Ryan said, “How does James Comey with a straight face say it has to be Joe Biden?”
Barkdoll said, “Right. When arguably Comey is the guy that had his thumb on the scale in 2016 that may have influenced the outcome of the race.”
Comey has a new fiction book out and has been on the interview circuit recently.
Barkdoll said, “He made some very controversial comments over the weekend, not only saying it has to be Joe Biden, but he’s saying Trump could be wearing an ankle bracelet while he’s accepting the GOP nomination. I don’t know that Comey has any credibility. I mean, people on both sides were so frustrated and annoyed with how he handled the Hillary Clinton investigation. The idea that he would come out saying it has to be Joe Biden, he is in the vast minority that has that view. But that clearly is what he’s adopting as he’s out doing all these interviews.”
Jansen added, “The first part of that sentence from Comey before the ankle bracelet, he said, ‘I mean, it’s this crazy world that Donald Trump has dragged this country into.’ Really Comey? It’s Donald Trump who’s dragged us into the world of crimes being committed and not prosecuted? And 10,000 people coming over a week at the border and all the fentanyl that’s killing everybody. That’s Donald Trump’s crazy world? I don’t think so. I think that’s Joe Biden’s crazy world.”
Barkdoll said, “I’ve never seen a race like this where again, poll after poll shows the vast majority of Democrats don’t want Biden to be the nominee, but yet here we are. It’s looking like it’s going to be him and RFK Jr. You hear of no other Democrats waiting to jump into the race and this train seems to be headed down the tracks that Biden likely is the nominee, even though the majority of his own party think it ought to be someone else.”
Ryan pointed out, “Doesn’t that speak volumes here? You got RFK Jr. making some interesting arguments and yet you’re going to put in a career politician like Joe Biden again. You’re going to run him up the flagpole? The Fed Reserve survey says Americans are reducing their savings to just make ends meet. And the survey also pointing to people are less secure about any kind of retirement. Again, you get what you voted for. The entire Biden administration is one big fiction. It’s one big story you can’t make up. You want fiction? You can’t make some of this stuff up.”
Biden could have some legal issues in his background, too.
Barkdoll said there’s “this document that the FBI has now offered to give to a Congressional committee that some Congressmen are suggesting would tie the Biden family into some questionable activities. We’ll see this week if that gets released. We’ve still got that US Attorney investigation out of Delaware that no one can explain why it’s taking so long for that report to be released. Remember, he’s the Trump holdover US attorney that’s been investigating this Hunter Biden and the Biden family. So who knows where that is? So again, it’s just this odd scenario. You could have the two leading candidates under just these constant black clouds of legal issues, but yet it appears if we had to make a guess right now, that it’s going to be Trump and Biden again facing off.”
Jansen said, “Even the supposed win by Representative Comer over their oversight committee getting to see that document, it’s only right now going to be him and Raskin from Maryland, the two heads of that committee, getting to go into a skiff to see a document that’s it’s been declassified, yet I still am hearing it’s going to be redacted. So how much information are they actually going to be allowed to see if some of its still redacted? Are we really going to get the truth on what Joe Biden and his family were doing? When there’s so much indication they were laundering money, you don’t have a minimally 114, and I think it’s more than that LLCs, ascribed and all these bank transactions that were major red flags that would probably lead anybody else in the middle of a serious investigation. And then tell us oh, no, there’s nothing to see here.
Barkdoll said, “It will be interesting to see if there’s any reporting about this document because as you said, one of the concerns is will it be so heavily redacted? And a redacted version gets released, that tells us virtually nothing. Again, we’ll see.”
Another interesting tidbit that was released over the weekend is the US Attorney has decided not to pursue any charges in the Mike Pence investigation with the classified documents at his house in Indiana.
Barkdoll said, “Now remember, we’re still waiting to see what the feds do on the Biden documents and on the Trump documents at Mar a Lago. There was a big story last week, where allegedly, they have Trump on tape in New Jersey after he left the White House, where he seems to admit that he knew he had illegal documents in his possession. If that reporting is true, it seems to totally undermine Trump’s defense. So again over the next few weeks, I think you’re going to see a lot of news about all of these things related to both Biden and Trump.”
