Facing no serious primary opponent of his own - at least so far - Trump is establishing himself as an in-their-face observer of the Democratic Party’s nominating process - and no one will be surprised to find that he’s not being coy about weighing in.”Ī month before the Zelensky call, Trump waxed political on Biden and his chances – unintentionally revealing in the process his concerns about facing off against the former VP. “In tweets, public remarks and private conversations, Trump is making clear he is closely following the campaign to challenge him on the ballot.

Click to subscribe!Īll the way back in February 2019, The Associated Press – in a piece headlined “Trump the pundit handicaps 2020 Democratic contenders” – wrote this: THE POINT - NOW ON YOUTUBE! In each episode of his weekly YouTube show, Chris Cillizza will delve a little deeper into the surreal world of politics. Remember that Trump is the consummate cable TV addict and there’s ample evidence that he was already following the Democratic race for the chance to run against him well before the Ukraine call or his comments to Stephanopoulos. If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI - if I thought there was something wrong.” “It’s not an interference, they have information - I think I’d take it. What’s clear in that phone call is that Trump was worried about the possibility of having to face the former vice president in 2020, and wanted to bloody him up a bit (or even disqualify him) in the early days of the Democratic primary.Īfter all, just a month before Trump made the phone call to Zelensky, he had told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos this about accepting dirt on a potential opponent from a foreign country: The one in which Trump’s barely hidden quid pro quo – the US does a lot for Ukraine so how’s about Ukraine digs up some dirt on Biden? – led to his eventual impeachment by a Democratic-led House (and acquittal by the Republican-led US Senate).

Yes, we are back to the “perfect phone call” (in Trump’s words). “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … it sounds horrible to me.” “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on a call last summer. Even as far back as July 2019, Donald Trump knew that Joe Biden posed a major threat to his chances of winning a second term.

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