behind in the polls. and it s a london seat, london has trended away from the conservatives for a long time, and in a by election, an opposition party can throw all their resources at a seat. so all the parties could definitely be in with a shot, i would have to see which party would be in it to win it. weirdly, the polling suggested johnson s polling from last week said he could still be in with a shot. his constituents, whatever they think of him personally, like that idea of having someone that big putting their place on the map, but he s decided he doesn t want to have that fight. henry, what s the reaction been tonight in the conservative party? so borisjohnson has his hardcore supporters, and they re all trying to rally round him nadine dories, another one of his most loyal mps, also resigned today as an mp, so that ll be a tricky by election for the conservatives. but the problem for boris is there are relatively few of those hard core loyalists left, and without him
about trump right now, desantis and everyone, and it shouldn t be a surprise that people are clicking, especially his hardcore supporters. it that s what they do the small donations small donations, which adds up to a whole lot of bucks in 24 hours after the indictment, can i ask you about this? because what s going to happen tomorrow? as we know the reporting is expedite arrangement that he probably won t be in a holding cell as part of my reporting. from last week. definitely fingerprinting but then mug shot part is up in the air. his there s a reporting that trump s advisers thought that putting his mug shot on t shirts and merchandise they were concerned about that. not sure about what happens with the mug shot. but this all leads to the spectacle. is he going to want that in order to continue to raise money in order to continue to have people you know i love you. just a drum things up. what do you think of the spectacle of all of this? you gotta assume he s kind of staring at the
the former president. and i think you re seeing some of that . now. what do you make of so many republican leaders rallying to trump s defense right now? even jeb bush, for example. well i think, um, you know, thinking back kevin mccarthy, who is in the majority leader correctly pointed out that trump was completely responsible for the riot and attack on the capital. as did some other republicans. shortly thereafter they started to defend the president. you d have to ask them why, but it looks to me that it s political. ah! political obsequiousness. it s catering to his most hardcore, mr trump s hardcore supporters who are almost, um. unable to come to grips with actual facts. when it comes to the x president. i don t know why people are saying what
political culture, that there won t be a moment where everyone steps back and says this is reckless, this is radical, we need to sober up, we need to push back on all of this. none of this has been happening. so i think we re in a very, very dangerous time. and as trump is pressured, as he s pressured one hopes by the legal community but if he suffers any defeats, his response will not be to step back. it will be to escalate the pattern of rhetoric that he s already using. and i know that there are people who say well, maybe we shouldn t pay that much attention to donald trump, maybe we should ignore him, don t give him any platform, don t give him any oxygen. i think that s absolutely wrong. i think it s really important to listen very carefully to the message he s putting out, the toxic sludge he is injecting into the american culture, and the message that he is sending to his hardcore supporters. maybe he can t be elected president in a general election but we re going to have a bul
yet they also play the victim. and this is very important in both bolsonaro and trump, they all say they are the persecuted ones, there are witch hunts against them. when bolsonaro goes into the hospital because he was stabbed a few years ago, he broadcasts live video from his hospital room and he has his gown on, he s hooked up to monitors. so they are very, quote, trance transparent with their bodies. and so when they summon the faithful to save them, it is very it has an appeal. you saw these hardcore supporters camped out ready to save their hero. well, lessons from the authoritarian playbook. ruth, thanks for joining us tonight. we have much more ahead tonight. republicans have been in a