Six of the eight Republican candidates who participated in the first pre-election debate for the 2024 presidential race, held earlier last night as Donald Trump counter-scheduled an X Network interview with host Tucker Carlson, raised their hands when the moderators asked them which of them would support the ex-president for re-election if – in the event of being nominated – he was convicted by justice. It was a culminating moment in the humiliation to which the ultra leader is subjecting the Republican Party, now including his rivals in the primaries and with the acceptance and cooperation of most of the humiliated.
Only former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson kept his hand down in response to the big question of the night, while former New Jersey governor Chris Christie half-raised it and explained afterward that he was moving the fingers The others, after some of them looked at each other and hesitated for a moment, ended up raising their arms in affirmative sign; including former Vice President Mike Pence, who did so moments before accusing the former president of violating the Constitution and pressuring him to do the same, unsuccessfully, when on January 6, 2021 a mob instigated by the leader tried to prevent the ratification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory and thus his defeat.
Trump’s main primary adversaries offered him their surprising pledge of loyalty as he Olympianly scorned them during his interview with the ousted host in April by the host of the debate, Fox. When justifying his absence from the colloquium, Trump added: “I had to sit there for an hour or two to be harassed by people who shouldn’t even be running for president? They would all write to me with questions that I would love to answer… But there was no point in doing so.”
Trump and his people behaved like this hours before, last night, the former president had to turn himself in to the prison in Fulton (Georgia), to be arrested, booked and released on a bond of 200,000 dollars by the 13 charges that a grand jury approved a few days ago against him for his attempts, along with 18 cooperators, to reverse the 2020 election defeat in the state. Among the accusations, which are added to the 78 accumulated in his three previous imputations, stands out the one related to the formation of a “criminal enterprise” that violates the anti-mafia law or RICO law against corrupt and extortion organizations.
Everything indicated that this time Trump would not escape the typical police photo of those signed, by virtue of the rules of the state, already applied to his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani with the corresponding portrait of the sheriff. Faced with this, the leader prepared to insist on his strategy of exalting victimhood, and initially agreed to deliver it in prime time.
If the signing photo were to be published, no one in the US is ruling out Trump making it the campaign image. The teasing doesn’t stop. The show must go on.
