Ron DeSantis’s Reset Needs a Reset

Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign is not going well. The Florida governor has money problems. He has charisma problems. But mostly he has a Donald Trump problem: His candidacy is based on the idea that he is electable and competent and yet he is lagging far behind his main rival while running an inept, flailing, campaign.

Still, presidential campaigns can change on a dime and DeSantis has long banked on doing well in early primaries and caucuses and using that momentum to capture the nomination. In keeping with that strategy, he has spent seemingly as much time in Iowa as he has in his own state of Florida—despite the fact that he is, at least ostensibly, the governor of the Sunshine State. There have been times over the past few months when it seems like he’s running for president of Iowa as much as he is running for president of the United States. He is in the state practically every week. He even suggested he would consider Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds as his running mate.

And yet it has gotten him almost nowhere. On Friday, The New York Times closed out its week of polls with a survey of Iowa voters. The Times did its best to put a positive spin on the results. Donald Trump, they found, is doing 10 points worse in Iowa than he is in the country as a whole: Only 44 percent of voters in the state plan on caucusing for him at this time. But this is hardly good news for DeSantis: He is only doing three points better in Iowa than he is nationally. Twenty percent of Iowans support him, compared to 17 percent nationally. In a head-to-head matchup between the two—something that almost certainly won’t happen—DeSantis still lags far behind. Trump leads him 55 to 39 percent when the choice is whittled down to the two front-runners, though there is a sliver of good news: Those numbers are more or less flipped among college-educated Republicans.

Still, this is yet another dreadful sign for DeSantis. He needs an early win to show Republicans that he can take on Donald Trump. Yes, the caucuses are a long way away. But there’s no evidence that DeSantis’s strategy is working, even after an early reset.

Democratic state Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who were expelled from the Tennessee legislature for protesting for gun control in April, were reelected to their seats in landslide victories on Thursday.

Jones and Pearson brought national scrutiny to Nashville in the wake of a school shooting in March, when they and fellow Democrat Gloria Johnson joined thousands of pro–gun control protesters in the Capitol building. Republicans voted to expel Jones and Pearson, both Black men, for allegedly violating chamber rules, but they fell one vote short of expelling Johnson, a white woman. Jones and Pearson were unanimously reinstated by their district councils until a special election could be held.

The two men swept handily to victory in that special election on Thursday. Jones defeated his Republican opponent with nearly 80 percent of the vote, while Pearson took home more than 90 percent of the votes in his district.

“Today is a landslide victory by the people, for the people, and in a community with the people,” Jones told The Tennessean in a statement. “Republicans tried to expel our democracy and then tried to buy it, but the voters of District 52 sent a message to extremist Republicans: we will not be silenced.”

Pearson told supporters Thursday that they had sent a “crystal clear” message to the state Republican Party: “You can’t expel a movement. You can’t expel hope.”

Both men have continued to advocate for gun legislation reform since they were reinstated by their district councils. Meanwhile, Johnson—who celebrated Jones’s and Pearson’s victories Thursday—is reportedly planning to challenge Marsha Blackburn for Senate.

Florida has effectively banned Advanced Placement Psychology in all public schools because the course includes content on sexual orientation and gender identity, a violation of the state’s draconian “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The College Board revealed the ban on Thursday, adding that it has heard from teachers across the state who are heartbroken by the news.

“We are sad to have learned that today the Florida Department of Education has effectively banned AP Psychology in the state by instructing Florida superintendents that teaching foundational content on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal under state law,” the College Board said in a statement. “The state has said districts are free to teach AP Psychology only if it excludes any mention of these essential topics.”

According to the Orlando Sentinel, nearly 27,000 students in Florida took A.P. Psychology last year, and the course has been offered in the state since it was first launched in 1993.

A.P. Psychology asks students to “describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development.” Florida’s Department of Education had asked the College Board to omit these sections from the curriculum, a move the organization rejected.

“We have learned from our mistakes in the recent rollout of AP African American Studies and know that we must be clear from the outset where we stand,” the College Board said in a statement in June.

The College Board stressed that the lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity are part of the class and, if they are erased, the course will not be able to carry the A.P. designation.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis expanded the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law in May, banning lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in every grade. He has waged a war on education in the state, targeting anything he perceives as too “woke.”

Earlier this year, DeSantis forced the College Board to water down its A.P. African American studies course, stripping Black Lives Matter and the work of many queer Black writers from the curriculum. Last month, the state Department of Education announced that middle school students will be required to learn that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

As Donald Trump entered a Washington, D.C., courthouse Thursday to be arraigned for his alleged role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, his lawyer was busy outside, undermining his entire case.

Trump was charged Tuesday for attempting to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. He faces four counts that include conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against the right to vote. His record third indictment hinges on the argument that Trump knew he had lost the election but still actively worked to overturn the results.

Which means Trump’s legal team should be arguing that he genuinely didn’t know he lost. But Trump’s lawyer argued the exact opposite.

“I think that everybody was made aware that he lost the election, but that doesn’t mean that that was the only advice he was given,” Alina Habba told reporters. “There are a numerous amount of advisers and politicians and lawyers, not just one or two, that are giving you advice and telling you what they believe is true.”

“The president has the right, as every one of us do, to listen to several opinions and make their decision.”

In other words, Habba admitted what the indictment said: A long list of people warned him not to do this.

The problem is also not how many advisers Trump had in the room. He and anyone else can simply say the election was rigged. That is technically protected by the First Amendment. The problem is that he acted on those words, despite knowing better, and encouraged others to do the same (this would constitute the “conspiracy” portion of the charges against him).

Habba’s other arguments in Trump’s defense weren’t much stronger. “What is it that he did to try and switch the votes?” she demanded at one point. “By bringing cases, by using the law in an appropriate manner?”

“What President Trump did is he said, ‘Go patriotically and peacefully, and protest.’ That is an American right.”

Habba seems to have forgotten that Trump was caught on a recording begging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” thousands of votes. Trump also told his supporters that January 6 “will be wild” and urged them to “fight like hell,” which does not exactly sound peaceful (but maybe she’s paraphrasing).

Shockingly, this isn’t the first time that a member of Trump’s legal team has decided the best defense is just to admit to everything. John Lauro bluntly confirmed Tuesday that Trump had pressured Mike Pence to delay certifying the votes (which is against the law) and had tried to use fake electors (also illegal).

Republicans’ latest key witness in their investigation into the Biden family’s supposed corruption actually said the exact opposite of everything the GOP has alleged.

The House Oversight Committee on Thursday released a transcript of testimony from Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, who gave a nearly five-hour interview in a closed-door session earlier this week. The hearing was the latest phase of Republicans’ months-long investigation into the Bidens, which has yet to produce any actual evidence. The GOP has accused Joe and Hunter Biden of influence peddling and accepting bribes.

Oversight Chair James Comer, who has spearheaded the investigation, has called Archer a “hero” and insisted for the past week that the businessman would prove that Joe Biden was directly involved in corrupt business practices. Other Republicans, including Nancy Mace, also claimed Archer would unequivocally prove how corrupt Biden is. But the hearing transcript shows nothing could have been further from the truth.

Republicans have insisted that an FBI report that contains unverified information and relies on a Rudy Giuliani conspiracy theory proves the Bidens accepted bribes from Burisma executive Mykola Zlochevsky.

“If someone were to conclude from this that this [form] is evidence … that Joe Biden was bribed by Mykola Zlochevsky, would you disagree with that conclusion?” Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, asked at one point.

“Yeah, I would,” Archer answered.

Schwartz also asked if Archer knew of any wrongdoing by the president.

“No, I’m not aware of any,” Archer replied.

Instead, throughout his testimony, Archer repeatedly stated that Biden was never involved in his son’s business and Hunter never asked his father to step in. Although the two men spoke often, it was either small talk or to catch up.

Archer said that Hunter tried to make himself seem more impressive by giving the impression that he could sway his father, then vice president, in certain directions. But nothing ever actually happened. Archer compared it to the anonymous source in the FBI form, who accused the Bidens of accepting bribes but then said that it’s common for Ukrainian businessmen to “brag or show-off.”

“As such, CHS is not able to provide any further opinion as to the veracity of Zlochevsky’s aforementioned statements,” the document concluded.

Archer explained that “people send signals and those signals are basically used as currency. And that’s kind of how a lot of D.C. operators and foreign tycoons and businessmen work.”

None of that stopped Comer from appearing on Fox News Monday night, though, and blatantly lying. “Every day this bribery scandal becomes more credible,” he said.

Comer claimed that Archer “said Hunter Biden was under immense pressure while serving on the Burisma board to get the Ukrainian prosecutor fired,” referring to Viktor Shokin, who was fired in 2016 for corruption.

He made similar claims on Fox News the following night. But everything he said was completely contradicted by Archer’s testimony.

Maybe Comer would have known that had he actually attended his own hearing.