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This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Kate Linebaugh: Early this morning, outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, a crowd gathered. There were reporters, photographers, protesters.

Speaker 2: Can you guys stand back?

Kate Linebaugh: For the first time, a former US president was about to be arrested on criminal charges. Flanked by security, Donald Trump stepped out of his SUV.

Speaker 3: There is former President Trump waving.

Kate Linebaugh: He headed into the Manhattan District Attorney's office.

Speaker 4: So at this moment, at 1:24 PM Eastern Time, Donald J. Trump is under arrest.

Speaker 5: Yes, he is.

Kate Linebaugh: Trump was indicted by a Grand Jury last week. But in court today, the criminal charges against him finally became public, 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The former president's plea, not guilty.Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Linebaugh. It's Tuesday, April 4th. Coming up on the show, Indictment Number 71543-23, The People of the State of New York against Donald J. Trump.To understand the charges against Trump, we turn to someone who's lived and breathed this story for a very long time.

Joe Palazzolo: My name is Joe Palazzolo. I work on The Journal's investigations team.

Kate Linebaugh: And you're the reporter who broke the Stormy Daniels story?

Joe Palazzolo: One of the reporters, yes.

Kate Linebaugh: Okay, good. It's important to be precise. You are one of the reporters who broke the Stormy Daniels story.

Joe Palazzolo: That's right. Thank you.

Kate Linebaugh: Stormy Daniels is key to today's news. Daniels is an adult film actress. She first came on Joe's radar in 2016. Back then, Trump was running for president, and Joe and his colleagues heard that two women were alleging they'd had affairs with Trump and were going to go public. The first was Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, and the second was Daniels.

Joe Palazzolo: And we knew that she had talked to some media and abruptly cutoff conversations. So we suspected that there was something funny going on, so we dug in.

Kate Linebaugh: And what did you find? What is the Stormy Daniels story?

Joe Palazzolo: The Stormy Daniels's story begins in 2006 at a celebrity golf tournament. According to Stormy Daniels, she met Donald Trump there and they had a sexual encounter. And then a decade later, when Donald Trump was running for president the first time, Stormy Daniels was trying to sell her story. Donald Trump's allies got wind of it and ultimately his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 to keep silent about the alleged sexual encounter.

Kate Linebaugh: Trump has denied having sexual encounters with both Daniels and McDougal, the Playboy model. What did it feel like to uncover this?

Joe Palazzolo: I mean, it was like a line in my head that I had to keep saying over and over, "The president's lawyer paid a porn star," just so I could get comfortable with the idea. And I guess I'm still not to this day because it's so sort of salacious and wild. I mean, the reason that we were interested in it wasn't because it involved a porn star, it was the money. The fact that there was a payment made to essentially keep someone quiet, to keep someone from saying something publicly that might impact Trump's campaign.

Kate Linebaugh: Joe and his colleagues published their story in January, 2018.

Speaker 7: Quite a story today in The Wall Street Journal. And I quote, Trump lawyer arranged $130,000 payment for adult film star's silence.

Speaker 8: What the Wall Street Journal's reporting this morning is at the private lawyer for Trump, Michael Cohen at the Trump Organization, set up a Delaware based private company and used a pseudonym to pay her essentially $130,000 in hush money.

Kate Linebaugh: The story got people's attention, including the attention of federal prosecutors. The US Attorney's office in Manhattan started investigating. They weren't focused on the alleged affair, they were focused on the money. The $130,000 that Michael Cohen paid out of his own pocket to Stormy Daniels. To federal prosecutors, it looked like a violation of campaign finance laws.

Joe Palazzolo: So the payoff to Stormy Daniels is the legal equivalent, according to prosecutors, of Michael Cohen basically just handing Trump's campaign $130,000. So if Cohen handed Trump $130,000 for his campaign, Trump would have to report that. But it's far, far more than federal law allows from an individual. And so in that sense, it was an illegal campaign contribution.

Kate Linebaugh: Okay. You're saying legally it is seen as a campaign finance violation. How so?

Joe Palazzolo: They were allegedly done in coordination with the campaign, specifically Donald Trump. And they were made for the purposes of influencing an election. That's according to prosecutors.

Kate Linebaugh: Federal prosecutors were also looking into a potential coverup. After Cohen paid Daniels, Trump reimbursed him. But prosecutors argued that the Trump organization disguised that reimbursement. They made it look like Cohen was being paid for legal work. In 2018, federal prosecutors charged Cohen.

Speaker 8: President Trump's former longtime attorney and fixer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to eight counts of campaign finance violation, tax fraud, and bank fraud.

Speaker 9: Cohen, a man who once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump, stood before a federal judge and admitted he paid off two women for the principle purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election.

Joe Palazzolo: Basically, he said Donald Trump directed him to pay Stormy Daniels. And again, there was just this moment in 2018 when he's in court and he stands up and he says that a candidate for office, being Donald Trump, told him to do this. So he's saying the president told him to commit a crime, to commit multiple crimes.

Kate Linebaugh: And how did Trump react to this?

Joe Palazzolo: His line is that he didn't do anything wrong. This was a legal agreement and my lawyer did it. And he's acknowledged that he reimbursed Cohen that much is known. But he has not said When he learned about the Stormy Daniels deal, when he learned she was shopping the story, when he learned about the payment. Michael Cohen says that he knew about it from day one and blessed it and instructed him to make it.

Kate Linebaugh: So Cohen was convicted and sentenced to prison in 2018 and it's only now that his boss is facing charges. What's behind that lag?

Joe Palazzolo: It's a really good question. When he pleaded guilty, Donald Trump was still president. And the Justice Department has long opined that a sitting president can't be indicted. So that covers through 2020. And then the US Attorney's office could have reopened the case after Trump left office, but it didn't. And instead the Manhattan District Attorney's office, so state prosecutors, picked up the case and they looked at the hush money payment for a long time. They looked at it so many times that it became known as the zombie case, and only this year was their Grand Jury impaneled to investigate it under Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg.

Speaker 10: The Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg will begin presenting evidence to a Grand Jury surrounding allegations that Donald Trump paid hush money to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Kate Linebaugh: Last week that Grand Jury indicted Trump, but the charges remained secret until today. That's next.

Alvin Bragg: Good afternoon. Thank you you for joining us here today.

Kate Linebaugh: That's Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg speaking to reporters after Trump's arraignment today.

Alvin Bragg: Earlier this afternoon, Donald Trump was arraigned on a New York Supreme Court indictment, returned by a Manhattan Grand Jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Under New York State law, it is a felony to falsify business records with intent to defraud and intent to conceal another crime. That is exactly what this case is about.

Kate Linebaugh: Bragg's office released the indictment and a so-called statement of facts. Joe has been digging into them.

Joe Palazzolo: A statement of facts, it's the story. It's this story that you're telling and it helps provide context for the charges. And so the charges are kind of bare bones and the statement of facts is what Bragg's office has used to explain why in fact these charges are crimes. And the story that they're trying to tell is that Trump was part of this broad scheme with his allies to suppress negative news about him through a legal means in the run up to the 2016 presidential election. And as evidence, they have the Stormy Daniels payment, they have the payment to Karen McDougal.

Kate Linebaugh: And they point to a third payment, to a doorman at Trump Tower. According to prosecutors in 2015, this doorman alleged that Trump had a child out of wedlock. The doorman tried to sell the story to the National Enquirer, and prosecutors say that the National Enquirer bought the story as part of an arrangement with Trump and Cohen and then buried it. According to the statement of facts, the tabloid eventually concluded the doorman's story wasn't true. But Joe says it was the Stormy Daniels payoff that led to those 34 criminal charges and 34 counts seems like a lot.

Joe Palazzolo: Yeah, yeah. I mean it does. And they really add up. But just to step back a little bit, the plan, according to Michael Cohen and the statement of facts, the plan was to reimburse Michael Cohen in monthly increments of $35,000. And the indictment, like you said, 34 seems like a lot, but it's not a lot when you consider all the different records that were sort of created and allegedly falsified to make sure that no one knew the true purpose of this reimbursement plan. So you have the checks, the check stubs, how those are recorded, there's the invoices, how those are recorded. So when you combine all those, you come up with 34 instances of falsified records.

Kate Linebaugh: Did you learn anything today about when Trump knew about these payments?

Joe Palazzolo: No. I mean the statement of facts, again, it alleges kind of the same communications and meetings that we already knew about that we had already reported.

Kate Linebaugh: These are felony charges, but falsifying business records can also be a misdemeanor. How did prosecutors get to this felony level?

Joe Palazzolo: So just run of the mill accounting fraud is just a misdemeanor, but you can elevate it to a felony if the prosecutors show that records were falsified to conceal or to commit another crime. So in this case, Bragg's office is saying the records were falsified and they were falsified to conceal the payment to Stormy Daniels, which itself was a violation of campaign finance law.

Kate Linebaugh: Trump didn't make any statements as he left the court, but his lawyers did. They said the charges were quote, boiler plate and that it was a sad day for the country. So what happens from here?

Joe Palazzolo: Well, the first thing that's going to happen is that Trump's attorneys are going to vigorously litigate. And that means they're going to ask the judge overseeing the case to dismiss it. They're going to file motions. And the District Attorney's office is going to have to answer that. They're going to have to respond and defend these charges.

Kate Linebaugh: Already in the weeks leading up to the indictment, Trump has been attacking the case.

Joe Palazzolo: He's called the case a witch hunt. He's said it's politically motivated. Alvin Bragg, the District Attorney, is a Democrat. He's also said there's no way he can get a fair trial in New York, which of course is his native city. But many here no longer embrace him, if they ever did.

Kate Linebaugh: Do you have a sense of the kind of defense Trump's team is planning to make?

Joe Palazzolo: So his lawyers have previewed and Trump himself on social media have kind of previewed some of the arguments they plan to make. The most technical one, I guess is kind of a statute of limitations argument. So the statute of limitations is the time in which prosecutors can bring charges. They have an expiration date, and his lawyers say that these charges are long expired. Now on the other side, the DA's office is likely to argue that when Trump became president and he moved out of New York, the statute paused. So there's still a lot of time left for them to make this case.

Kate Linebaugh: And if it isn't dismissed and can go ahead, how long could it take to go to trial?

Joe Palazzolo: So if the case survives the expected motion to dismiss, you could have a situation where Trump is put on trial basically at the height of his presidential campaign.

Kate Linebaugh: So you have a former president campaigning to be reelected as president while also on trial for criminal charges.

Joe Palazzolo: Yeah, yeah, exactly. We keep saying things like historic and unprecedented, but everything from this point forward is going to be that.

Kate Linebaugh: If Trump were to be found guilty, what could that mean for him? Would he go to prison?

Joe Palazzolo: He could go to jail. The charges against him don't have any mandatory jail sentence though. So he may not, if he's convicted. And it's not really going to impact his candidacy. The US Constitution doesn't say anything about candidates who are convicted of felonies. It doesn't bar them from running for office.

Kate Linebaugh: Could there be other cases coming against Trump?

Joe Palazzolo: Yeah. So this is history. I mean, we're witnessing history here. But of the ongoing investigations of Donald Trump, this seems qualitatively the least of them. There are other cases. There's an investigation of Georgia of election interference. There's been reporting that Grand Jury is going to start hearing that soon. And then there are two federal investigations under the same special counsel, one of which is looking at the alleged mishandling of classified documents. And the other, which is looking at January 6th and Trump's efforts to overturn the election. So any of the three of those cases could potentially lead to charges.

Kate Linebaugh: Trump has denied wrongdoing in all these cases. He plans to give a speech from Mar-a-Lago later tonight.That's all for today, Tuesday, April 4th. The Journal is a co-production of Gimlet and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Rebecca Ballhaus, Jennifer Calfas, Ben Chapman, James Fanelli, Alyssa Lukpat, and Corinne Ramey.Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

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Donald Trump Is Charged on 34 Felony Counts - The Journal. - WSJ ... - The Wall Street Journal

Opinion: I am not naive enough to believe that a pardon would in any way begin the process of healing or mend our broken fences. But it's still the right thing to do.

AP Explains: Trump pleads not guilty to 34 charges

A stone-faced Donald Trump made a momentous court appearance Tuesday as the only ex-president to be charged with a crime as he was confronted with a 34-count felony indictment. (April 4)

AP

Back in the day, our nations founders had this crazy idea to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility .

I say crazy because nearly 2 centuries later the union is nowhere near perfect, justice for all has yet to be established and virtually no aspect of our domestic situation is tranquil.

These days, one of the major reasons for this turmoil is former President Donald Trump, a man who has never been particularly keen on tranquility.

Just the opposite.

Chaos is his game.

That may be one of the reasons hes in trouble, most recently having been indicted by the Manhattan district attorneys office with 34 counts of falsifying business records.

He also faces possible indictment out of Atlanta for allegedly attempting to subvert the 2020 election results in Georgia.

As well as more potential indictments stemming from a Department of Justice investigation into the classified documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago, as well as any connection he may have had to the Jan. 6., 2021, insurrection.

The general publics reaction to Trumps indictment falls into two categories. People either believe it is proof that no one is above the law, or proof of a politically motivated witch hunt.

Should any of the cases against Trump proceed to trial, where a verdict is reached, not a single persons opinion about this will change.

Not one.

Should Trump be found guilty, there would be an appeal, or perhaps many appeals.

And no matter how those cases are resolved, Id guess he will never spend any time in jail because, basically, we have yet to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility .

Given all that, President Joe Biden should pull a Gerald Ford and pardon Donald Trump. And, yes, I know, a president can't pardon someone for a state crime, only for federal offenses. But Biden can eliminate federal complaints. He can set a tone. He can be, in a way Trump never was, presidential.

In 1974, after former President Richard Nixon resigned over his involvement in the Watergate scandal, for which he would have faced criminal prosecution, Ford announced that he had decided to grant a full, free and absolute pardon to Nixon.

The pardon was not well received. A majority of Americans wanted Nixon prosecuted, and Fords decision may have cost him the subsequent presidential election.

Ford never wavered, however.

He appeared before a congressional committee and told them, I was absolutely convinced then as I am now that if we had had anindictment, a trial, a conviction, and anything else that transpired after this that the attention of the President, the Congress and the American people would have been diverted from the problems that we have to solve.

A playmate and indictment: Arizona's connection to Trump's woes

One of those who disagreed with Ford at the time was Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.

In 2001, however, while presenting Ford with a Profile in Courage award, Kennedy said, Unlike many of us at the time, President Ford recognized that the nation had to move forward, and could not do so if there was a continuing effort to prosecute former President Nixon.His courage and dedication to our country made it possible for us to begin the process of healing and put the tragedy of Watergate behind us.

Every president grants pardons.

Barack Obama issued 212. George W. Bush did 189. Trump, during his time, granted 143.

They are often controversial. More proof of our messy system of justice.

I am not nave enough to believe that granting a pardon to Trump would in any way begin the process of healing or put the tragedy behind us.

But its still the right thing to do.

Ford told the House committee, Our nation is under the severest of challenges now to employ its full energies and efforts in the pursuit of a sound and growing economy at home and a stable and peaceful world around us. We would needlessly be diverted from meeting those challenges if we as a people were to remain sharply divided over whether to indict, bring to trial, and punish a former President .

Yeah, what he said.

Reach Montini ated.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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Joe Biden should pardon Donald Trump, spare us from indictment ... - The Arizona Republic

April 4 (Reuters) - When Donald Trump walks into Justice Juan Merchan's courtroom on Tuesday to face criminal charges, it will be a first for a former U.S. president but familiar territory for the veteran judge who serves on Manhattan's criminal court.

Merchan last year oversaw a criminal trial of the Trump Organization that ended with the real estate company convicted by a jury of tax fraud and hit with fines, while one of its longtime executives, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty and was sent to jail.

Trump is expected to be arraigned before Merchan on Tuesday following a grand jury investigation into hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The grand jury has indicted Trump, though the specific charges have not been publicly disclosed.

Susan Necheles, a Trump attorney, told Reuters the former president will plead not guilty.

Merchan sentenced the Trump Organization to pay $1.6 million after jurors convicted the company in December. The judge also sentenced Weisselberg, who long served as an executive under Trump but was the prosecution's star witness in the trial, to five months of incarceration.

On Friday, Trump, who was not charged in his company's case, lashed out at Merchan on his Truth Social platform.

"The Judge 'assigned' to my Witch Hunt Case, a 'Case' that has NEVER BEEN CHARGED BEFORE, HATES ME," wrote Trump, who has launched a campaign to regain the presidency in 2024. "He strong armed Allen, which a judge is not allowed to do, & treated my companies, which didn't 'plead,' VICIOUSLY."

Merchan did not reply to a request for comment.

The Trump Organization trial is not Merchan's only recent encounter with people close to the former president. Merchan also is presiding over a criminal case involving former Trump campaign and White House adviser Steve Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud related to a nonprofit that raised funds for building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

Merchan has been a Manhattan criminal court judge since 2009 after prior stints on the state's Court of Claims, which hears cases against the state and its agencies, and family court in the Bronx.

The judge was born in Colombia and moved to the United States at age 6, growing up in New York City's borough of Queens, according to news reports. Merchan graduated from Baruch College and Hofstra University School of Law and began his legal career in the same District Attorney's office that is now prosecuting Trump.

Merchan presided over the 2012 case of the so-called "Soccer Mom Madam" Anna Gristina, which garnered lurid headlines in the New York media. Gristina was accused of running a high-end brothel out of her Manhattan apartment and eventually pleaded guilty. Gristina sued Merchan in 2021 to unseal records in her case as part of an effort to vacate her record. Her case was dismissed, according to court records.

In 2011, Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York recommended that President Barack Obama nominate Merchan for a federal judgeship in Brooklyn, saying he would have been the first Colombian-born federal judge, according to the New York Law Journal. Merchan was not nominated for the post.

Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Additional reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Will Dunham and Noeleen Walder

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Thomson Reuters

Tom Hals is an award-winning reporter with 25 years of experience working in Asia, Europe and the United States. Since 2009 he has covered legal issues and high-stakes court battles, ranging from challenges to pandemic policies to Elon Musk's campaign to end his deal for Twitter.

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Juan Merchan: Who is the judge overseeing the Donald Trump ... - Reuters

Donald Trump

New polls show DeSantis eight points up on Trump in Iowa, which will kick off the primary, and level in New Hampshire, the second state to vote

Donald Trump has increased his national lead in the Republican presidential primary but seems set to face a closer tussle with his chief rival, Ron DeSantis, in the crucial first two states to vote, new polls show.

On Monday, a new survey from the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard and the Harris Poll gave the former president a 26-point national lead over the Florida governor, by 50% to 24%, a four-point gain since February.

Former vice-president Mike Pence, who like DeSantis has not announced a run, was third, with 7%. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who declared in February, was fourth, with 5% support.

The poll followed the trend in a race which on Saturday saw Trump stage his first full campaign rally in Waco, Texas, beginning with images of the January 6 attack on Congress and a song portraying those convicted as political prisoners.

Trump has also focused on a reportedly imminent indictment in New York City, over a hush money payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels, as he looks to whip up his base.

DeSantis is widely seen to be running a shadow campaign, promoting a book in key states. He also seems to be in a difficult position, needing to support Trump in the New York case while seeking to catch up in the polls via political attacks.

In return, Trump has begun to attack DeSantis in familiar, slashing terms.

As the Harvard poll indicated, DeSantis continues to struggle to make an impact on a national scale.

However, there was apparent good news for the governor from the website Axios, which published the results of two polls carried out by a Republican firm.

In head-to-head matches, Public Opinion Strategies put DeSantis eight points up on Trump in Iowa, which will kick off the primary in February 2024, and level in New Hampshire, the second state to vote.

Axios said: National polling has shown Trump significantly ahead of DeSantis, but these polls suggest DeSantis is performing better in the early states where voters pay closer attention.

However, there was better news for Trump when respondents were asked to choose from the whole field of declared and potential contenders. Then, Trump and DeSantis were tied in Iowa while Trump led by 12 points in New Hampshire.

Other surveys have shown similar potential for anti-Trump candidates to split the vote and give the former US president the nomination without majority support.

That was what happened in 2016. Then, the Texas senator Ted Cruz won Iowa before Trump swept to victory in New Hampshire. Trump was not seriously challenged thereafter.

The MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan was among observers to seize on the Axios report, which he called a reality check for those of us LOL-ing at DeSantiss poor performance this past week and poor polling at a national level, adding: State polls matter way more than national polls. Especially in early primary states.

But Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist and pollster, warned DeSantis world not to get carried away by the Axios report.

Pointing to the GOP red wave poll BS last year in which polling suggested big Republican midterm gains but the GOP only took the House by a small margin Rosenberg said the Public Opinion Strategies surveys were not nearly as good for DeSantis as Axios portrayed.

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Trump builds national lead over DeSantis but faces closer race in early-voting states - The Guardian US

Welcome to FiveThirtyEights politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior elections analyst): Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is running for president. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan decided not to. Sen. Tim Scott is reportedly nearing an announcement. Former Vice President Mike Pence certainly sounds like a candidate.

All of these Republicans have something in common: They dont want former President Donald Trump to be their partys nominee in 2024. But theyre clearly taking very different approaches toward accomplishing that goal. Some, like Haley, apparently think its best to face him head on; on the other hand, Hogan specifically said he wanted to avoid another multicar pileup that could potentially help Mr. Trump recapture the nomination.

So for this weeks FiveThirtyEight politics chat, were debating what the best strategy is. If youre a Republican who wants a new direction for the party, should you try to lead the party in that direction yourself? Or should you throw your support behind the non-Trump candidate who currently appears to have the best shot of winning the nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis?

alex (Alex Samuels, politics reporter): I think DeSantiss appeal to that wing of the party is that he might be their only option? No other Republican seems capable of giving Trump a run for his money at least not right now. And if you dont want a rematch of 2020, then, sure, DeSantis looks like the least of three evils (the third being another term for President Biden).

But if youre a voter who rejects Trump and his approach to politics, then why would an equally Trumpy candidate be the solution? Its easy to argue that Trump and DeSantis are two different sides of the same coin.

nrakich: So youre saying Haley/Hogan/Scott/Pence should run, Alex? And try to open up a third lane in the primary?

alex: The more the merrier, in my opinion. I understand the fear never-Trumpers have, especially given your reporting, Nathaniel, that Trump leads a multi-candidate field but would be in trouble in a two-way race against DeSantis.

I guess the flip side is: Do never-Trumpers actually want a candidate like DeSantis? Its not clear to me that he would run a wildly different primary campaign than Trump at least in terms of the message hes touting. And I cant imagine that DeSantiss own the libs culture-war messaging will appeal to the moderate wing of the GOP.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, senior elections analyst): I think two different things are in tension for Republican primary voters. If you dont want a Trump-like direction for the GOP, DeSantis isnt who you want hes largely doubling down on Trumps approach to politics while trying to put a more winning gloss on it. (Whereas Trump lost reelection in 2020 and contributed to Republicans underperformance in the 2022 midterms, DeSantis won a landslide reelection victory in Florida, which at least until recently was viewed as a clear swing state.)

But if you dont want Trump to win, DeSantis is clearly your best choice. Its still early, of course, and things could change, but early polls are decently predictive of how candidates perform in primaries, and DeSantis today is polling in the mid-to-high 20s in multi-candidate surveys. That puts him in a clear second position at this point.

And the good news for DeSantis is that most Republican voters probably want a Trumpy party, even if they choose someone else to lead it. Take Morning Consults primary poll tracker: Trump (54 percent) and DeSantis (26 percent) combine for 80 percent of the primary vote. And based on second-choice preferences, voters dont view them as intractably opposed choices, but rather as two sides of the same coin. The leading second-choice candidate for Trump voters is DeSantis with 46 percent (Pence gets 17 percent), and the leading second choice for DeSantis voters is Trump with 43 percent (Pence is at 16 percent).

So do you want a certain approach to politics or do you want to stop Trump? The latter seems more likely to bring about Trumps defeat than the former, in part because GOP primary voters prefer a Trumpian approach.

alex: I get that, Geoffrey! Never-Trumpers can make the case (as some Democrats have) that Trump is uniquely anti-democratic, so anyone who isnt Trump is marginally better. But I feel like just being slightly better than Trump wont be enough for them.

nrakich: Interesting. So theres a distinction between wanting to stop Trump vs. wanting to stop Trumpism.

geoffrey.skelley: Right. And because the GOP has been remade in Trumps image, it makes sense that most Republicans would like to choose either him again or someone like him.

alex: That said, I also think its too early to dismiss the possible alternatives to both DeSantis and Trump! Yes, DeSantis is doing well in the polls right now, but hes been slipping as of late. And theres evidence that people dont really know who he is or are still making up their minds about him. That could change, though, especially as he becomes more of a household name.

Trump, meanwhile, could self-destruct at any moment remember, he might get indicted in any number of investigations.

geoffrey.skelley: Alex, I do think theres not necessarily any harm in these other candidates getting into the race to see how things go. After all, were more than nine months away from actual voting in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But if Republicans remain worried about Trump damaging the party in the general election and want to rally to one candidate, the also-rans need to get out of the way by late 2023.

This could definitely change, but Trump holds a pretty clear lead in primary polls that included at least him, DeSantis, Pence and Haley. So the fears that some Republicans have about Trump winning with plurality support once we get to the actual voting are certainly well-founded. After all, he did it in 2016.

But its also not a given that DeSantis can beat him head to head. While DeSantis briefly took a slight lead in polls that only included the two of them just after the midterm elections, Trump has regained a clear edge there, too.

However, DeSantis trails Trump by a bit more than 15 percentage points head-to-head, versus more than 20 points across the multi-candidate polls. So thats an argument in favor of getting out of the way if you want to derail Trump.

alex: Yeah, I think there might be a path to the nomination albeit a narrow one for candidates like Haley and Scott, who have been somewhat measured in how they talk about the former president. But I dont think theres a path for folks like Hogan or former Rep. Liz Cheney, who have openly denounced Trump. (I could make the same argument against Pence, too.)

nrakich: Yeah, Hogan hasnt polled above 1 percent in any national poll this year (one of which was taken after he announced he was not running). So what would have been the argument for him to run?

geoffrey.skelley: To me, the reason for someone like Hogan or Cheney to run is not to win. Thats not gonna happen. Its to make the case for a different sort of Republican Party. Its certainly a losing battle right now, but despite the short-term nature of politics, arguments about the direction of political parties are won over the course of decades, not years.

Just consider how long it took for the conservative wing of the GOP to truly capture the party. Sure, the party nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964, but then you get Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Its not until Ronald Reagan wins in 1980 that its clear that conservatives have taken over the GOP.

alex: Would someone like Hogan or Cheney also include Scott and Haley, Geoff? Or do you think they occupy a different lane?

geoffrey.skelley: I definitely view Scott and Haley as different from Hogan or Cheney. Scott and Haley have largely avoided being overly critical of Trump, whereas Hogan and Cheney have been publicly critical of Trump. Cheney voted to impeach Trump in his second impeachment trial and lost her primary because of it. Hogan supported that impeachment, too.

nrakich: Yeah, being anti-Trump like Hogan or Cheney puts a ceiling on your support in a GOP primary. But being kinda Trump-neutral means you could, theoretically, steal some of that support from Trump or DeSantis.

alex: Running for president also helps raise your profile! And its possible, too, that Scott and Haley (neither of whom is super well known) either want to lay the groundwork for a presidential run in 2028 or 2032 and/or are running for vice president.

I think that former point is especially true for someone like Scott. But I really hate the running for vice president line, as I think its often used in a cheap way to marginalize both women and candidates of color.

geoffrey.skelley: And to get back to the it doesnt hurt to run at this point argument, DeSantis remains at least somewhat unproven. What if he pulls a 2012 Rick Perry and has a really rough debate performance that casts doubt on his ability to truly challenge Trump for the nomination? You dont know until youre in it.

nrakich: I think there are three reasons why DeSantis could be weaker than he seems. Hes unproven on the national stage, hes been slipping in the polls and the, uh ... whats the third one?

geoffrey.skelley: Haha, Nathaniel! Yeah, I think if theres another question about DeSantis, its his ability to play to the audience on the stump or in a crowd. I do think some of the coverage weve seen of that is frankly overwrought and just the media looking for anything to grab onto as everyone waits for DeSantis to announce. To be fair, it also reflects a higher level of scrutiny of DeSantis as a national candidate. Still, its easier to write that story than dig into the nuts and bolts of things like DeSantiss dont say gay legislation in Florida. But there could be something to it.

nrakich: OK, so I admit, I went into this chat thinking that we would conclude it was a fools errand for non-Trump-or-DeSantis Republicans to jump into the presidential race. But you guys have convinced me that it actually doesnt hurt so much if your goal is to move the party away from Trumpism.

But what if all you care about is stopping Trump himself? (Like, say, if you think Trump would lose the general election to Biden but another Republican wouldnt.) In that case, isnt it pretty clear that everyone else should get out of DeSantiss way?

geoffrey.skelley: Come fall, if polls arent too different from where they are now, then yes. Someone polling at like 5 percent in national polls in November 2023 aint winning this thing.

But its also on DeSantis to win over voters who like Trumpism but are ready to give someone else the job of winning the presidency because theyre worried about Trump losing or because they like what DeSantis has been doing in Florida. With DeSantis polling well as the second choice among Trump voters, you can see how that path could develop.

And if the people who are supporting the Haleys, Pences and Scotts of the world rally to the Trump alternative, thatll also help DeSantis. As Henry Olsen has noted at The Washington Post, much could depend on where an important group of GOP primary voters the somewhat conservatives end up moving once we get beyond the early states. Theyve traditionally decided Republican nominees. In 2016, they opted for Trump over former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (too moderate) and Sen. Ted Cruz (too conservative). This time around, it looks like very conservative voters may prefer Trump. So will somewhat conservatives latch onto DeSantis as a leading alternative? They could.

alex: Yeah, I think the argument for someone in that camp is that DeSantis doesnt have Trumps baggage, but his credentials are just as if not more ideologically conservative. So in that case, sure, why not DeSantis! And hes currently the only Republican whos competitive with Trump in the polls, so theres an easy argument for why hes the best non-Trump Trump opponent.

nrakich: Are there any non-electoral reasons for anti-Trump candidates to keep their powder dry?

[Editors note: Several minutes pass. ]

alex: Seems like everyone jumped in the more the merrier camp!

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Should Anti-Trump Republicans Clear The Field For DeSantis? - FiveThirtyEight