the coverage. the new yorker cover with donald trump portray thed as a metal-wearing, goose-stepping nazi e soldier. trump continues to dominate the coverage as he did by doing an iowa town hall with fox news overshadowing at the same hour the ron desantis-nikki haley slug fest on cnn. and the former president generated wall the wall coverage by showing up in washington on his claim of immunity for actions in office; namely, challenging the last election. trump s presence in that courtroom which took him off the campaign trail just days before the iowa caucuses underscored the vindictiveness of the lawfare if being waged against him. why s he in court instead of campaigning? because donald trump being in court is the greatest bully pulpit for him where he can plaw fake. howard: trump wasn t required to be in court then or on thursday when he denounced the judge in his new york civil fraud trial, but he drew attention from his rivals whose iowa events are being buried by s
narrowly winning it. he feels like he can t necessarily trust these numbers, so as much as he touts them, i think this is really the point where the rubber meets the road and he gets to see how much support and how dedicated the supporters really are. howard: yeah. especially in the face of this expected monster blizzard and 15 crees below today in des moines. so, kevin, the new york times says the republican primary race increasingly feels like a contest for second place. if that s true, are the pundits increasingly rooting for nikki haley? if obviously, they are going very negative about desantis, can he last past iowa and all that, as their last hope of overtaking donald trump? yeah, i don t think there s any if question. they re hoping with all vision gore that somehow, some way nikki haley and, listen, it could happen. i think ben s right, we ve seen iowa throw curveballs year after year after year howard: absolutely. mike huckabee, rick santorum. there you go.