iowa caucuses, my conversation with ron desantis about his strategy is coming up. the big news, in my view, is that the media are throwing in the towel. here s politico. the defining feature of the race is just how uncompetitive it s become. donald trump has already iced the rest of the field, trouncing his competitors like a slow motion coronation. washington post, a growing sense among political veterans across the state that the basic outcome is set and a trump victory is all but assured. and that view has spread to television. we ve been talking about this as if it s a real race, but so far we haven t seen evidence that there is anyone who s going to be able to steal this mantel from trump. donald trump is still the front-runner among republicans. and any attempt by his rivals to sell themselves as reasonable alternatives are going even further down the tubes. she does not have a strong performance, that could spell trouble for the end of her campaign. and once agai
hey, everyone. it s 4:00 in new york. i m in for nicole wallace. special counsel jack smith is a prosecutor that stays out of the spotlight. he prefers to speak through his fiings. that s why his laltest brief in the federal election case merits our attention. over the weekend, the justice department responded to trump s claims that he is immune from prosecution. what he did was within the scope of his duties as president of the united states. it s an argument that trump was taking to the courts in order to get the whole election case dismissed. the special counsel is speaking to the court. let s be honest. he s also speaking to any of us who care about the health of our democracy. prosecutors acknowledge the fact we re dealing with an unprecedented situation. for the first time in our nation s history, a grand jury charged a former president of committing crimes while in office to overturn an election he lost. in response the defendant claims to protect the institution of th
if donald trump was an insurrectionist, he should not be allowed or able to run for office. and if he s disqualified, that isn t undemocratic. howard: that, of course, in reasons to the ballot bans and the supreme court late friday agreed e to hear the former president s appeal of the all-democratic court s decision. trump s also appealed to the courts in maine, the ruling by the democratic and highly partisan sec share of secretary of state. nikki haley still trying to distance herself from the uproar over herz refusal to use the word layoff slavery when asked the cause of the civil war. the media s the only one that has talked about this issue. no, that s actually not true finish. not one person on the ground request. i should have said slavery, i didn t do it. i immediately, the very next day, came out and said i was wrong. howard: fairly or unfairly, the press is describing the contest between haley and desantis as a battle for second place. i m howard kurtz and this is
parallel. we re talking about the 14th amendment, but we have to understand that within the context, not only of this war, reconstruction, but redemption, the end of reconstruction, the violence that follows, and that violence that followed had everything to do with our failure to hold people to account. and people board the brunt of that. so here we are in a moment, where the constitution i think is clear, though the court has to make its decision, its determination. if donald trump was an insurrectionist, he should not be allowed or able to run for office. and if he s disqualified, that isn t undemocratic, that s perfectly consistent with our system, and when we have failed to do that, we have found ourselves fundamentally compromised as a democracy. when we fail to do it, at 1876, prior to that moment, and after that moment we have had to live with the system in which a whole of entire population of our society was deemed second class citizens.