Politics the former president s pardon play. Donald trumps lawyers make a hail mary request for an april 2026 start to the 2020 Election Trial and try to make sure the case never sees the inside of a courtroom. Plus a game of risk. New reporting outlines how republicans plan to conquer a trumpless debate. How another republican warns his party appears poised to fulfill the textbook definition of insanity. President biden invokes the whole enemy of my enemy is a Friend Theory of Foreign Policy today pushing two neighbors to put aside a generation of bad blood and send a message to the country a couple blocks away, china. Im Phil Mattingly in for dana bash. Lets go behind the headlines and inside politics. Were going to start with this up first. Two questions. Do you know what youre doing on monday . Do you know what youre doing in april, 2026 . The answer is no for me on both of them. Donald trump, though, has plans for both. More specifically mr. Trump knows where he wont be on monday
i don t think you need one. all the people going through the strategy memo stuff and coming up with canned lines and the rest of it. i ve watched that canned line thing. it doesn t work all that well. the implicit reference there to marco rubio and chris christie s interaction in 2016. but christie is viewed as the attack dog. i think he wants to face trump. he s been trying to goad trump into showing up. what role does he play if trump doesn t show up? he is going to draw a contrast with the other folks on the stage mostly ron desantis who we ve seen from memos is coached to not go after donald trump. chris christie will be on stage making very clear attacks on donald trump talking about what he thinks he has done wrong and will put ron desantis in a tough spot where he is trying to defend him or with stand attacks from chris christie. we know chris christie can be charismatic and that is area ron desantis struggles. somebody wrote be likable on his notebook so in a tough spot