distraction and, frankly, the media is talking about it nonstop. but when i do these town halls, the american public is not talking to me about that. i think what our voters need to begin to think about is, we have a front-runner right now who, when he gets on the stage for the fox news debate on august 23rd, will be out on bail in at least two different jurisdictions, if not three between now and then. how are we going to beat the democrats with a candidate who is going to be out on bail facing numerous, numerous self-inflicted wounds in courtrooms across this country? donald trump is not running for president to make america great again. donald trump is running to stay out of prison. if we elect [ crowd booing ] i know, i know, i know, i know. listen, i know the truth, the truth is hard.
head-to-head, he ll probably beat trump. when he is facing the threat from the left in cornell west, taking points from his left, and facing potentially a center/center-right candidate, former republican senator governor, i think that s a much tougher scenario for biden to survive. david, that s an interesting question for you to address. you talked about the donor base with the populous wing of the republican party. would the donor base be interested in a third-party candidate if donald trump is the nominee of the party? well, i think it is a really good question. you know, in 2015/2016, a lot of republican donors talked about the idea that they re never going to support trump. he s not good for the party. they eventually came around. and i m still not convinced, and i think donald trump looks at it like this, and he said this to people, that, listen, you might as well jump on board now because i m going to win and you know you re going to back me anyway. cut the cord and get it
which, we should note, was conducted before new charges were announced against trump in the classified documents case, that superseding indictment. if you take out all candidates other than trump and desantis, the survey still shows the former president leading big by a margin of 62% to 31%. the poll also suggests that 56% of republicans say trump did nothing wrong in the classified documents case, though it remains to be seen if last week s superseding indictment changes the support. my guess would be no. and after the 2020 vote, 75% of republicans say he was exercising his right to contest the election. 19% say his actions threatened american democracy. charlie sykes, charlie sykes, charlie sykes. this is yet another poll that shows that this is donald trump s party no matter what sort of legal peril he faces
next year. right now in the republican party, we are at two indictments, likely a third maybe this week, and nothing changes. well, you know, it really speaks to the extent to which donald trump has gotten a large portion of the republican base to identify with him. and so the more under attack he becomes, almost like a bunker mentality has developed among the republican base. they just dig in even deeper with him. you know, one of the questions that i had, and i was wondering if maybe charlie might be able to shed some light on this is, charlie, you know, more and more, especially as candidates like ron desantis has risen, who while not a populist himself necessarily, certainly is far to the right of most voters in the country, do you think that this is an overall realignment that we re seeing among republican voters with right-wing populism? or is this really just more cultlike behavior about donald trump himself and trumpism? that is a fascinating
mara gay. white house editor for politico, sam stein. you saw him on way too early. and the founder of the conservative website, the bulwark, charlie sykes. it is a great group. thank you for being with us this morning. we ll begin the week with the latest on those new charges against former president donald trump in the classified documents case. today, a newly introduced third defendant, the property manager at former president s florida home, is scheduled to be arraigned in miami federal court. carlos de oliveira was named in a superseding indictment last week and charged in four counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to the fbi. according to prosecutors, trump directed both de oliveira and his valet, walt nauta, to destroy security camera footage last year from the room monitoring where boxes of