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	Open in app or online "Meatball Ron" Is "Too Crude" for Trump And other tales of the day.... Mark Halperin Mar 14   Save ▷  Listen   Hey, millionaires, billionaires, and other well-off, regular consumers of Wide World of News!!!! Please consider joining your many fellow readers who have chosen of late to become financial supporters of my daily work. You can become a voluntary paying subscriber here: Upgrade to paid Or please consider making a voluntary contribution to support my work on this newsletter. You can contribute ANY amount you wish via any of the following routes: * Buy me a cocktail (at Gotham city prices….), tax and server tip included, by clicking here. * Buy me a cup of coffee (or a week’s worth) by clicking here. * Check. 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Mark **** THE BANKING CRISIS Where conventional wisdom meets the best facts meets the consensus analysis: * Knock wood and on the current trajectory, the turmoil should be over in a few days. * Interest rate hikes will be pared back, which could net/net actually help the economy. * Overall harm to the economy from the recent events could be minimal. * Team Biden was hyper aware of the potential populist backlash from the start and took many steps (some not yet reported) to insulate the administration and the president himself from political danger. * Team Biden did what it had to do to avoid a panic or contagion, with minimal risk or cost. * So far, despite the criticism, there are no sympathetic “losers” or fat cat “winners” in the public eye, which is exactly what the White House was going for. * Republicans who want to make political hay out of the administration’s handling of these events are hampered by what Republicans are more generally hampered by at this point: the leading voices in its three-ring circus (congressional wing, 2024 candidates, conservative media) haven’t settled on a clear critique.  Bad oversight, too much woke, costs passed on to consumers, Democratic donors protected – which is/are it?  Plus (two more recurring GOP comms problems): the party is divided (note some on the right are saying Team Biden did just fine) and defined (via the Dominant Media) by its nuttiest spokespeople. Republicans won’t drop this line of attack right away, but it might peter out soon. **** Donald Trump made several moves on Monday that Ron DeSantis has not yet achieved. All were steps Trump took in 2016 that seemed to help him win the Republican nomination. Can DeSantis do these things?  Does he want to? Does he need to? Only time will tell. 1.  Allow reporters (Bloomberg, CBS News, Washington Post, Politico, Daily Caller) to fly with him on his campaign plane, giving them Straight-Talk-Express-style access in which wide-ranging questions are answered 2. Draw an Iowa crowd of more like 4,000 or 5,000 than 1,000, without giving away books. 3. Take audience questions in a town-hall-style setting. 4. Use rally and press availability rhetoric to frame attacks on rivals that will get traditional media and social media amplification. We have seen nomination battles that involved two titan candidates before (Clinton-Obama ’08, Bush-McCain ’00), but nothing quite like this, involving a former president and a same-state rival. In addition to those four flexes above, we also need to note again that Trump has a more experienced campaign team than he has in the past, is organizing for the Iowa caucuses more than he did in 2016, and is in many ways taking advantage of the months’ long head start he has over Team DeSantis. And the Dominant Media can’t help but help Trump get his message out. Politico: Former President Donald Trump is intensifying his attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, calling him disloyal and saying that his political career would have been over had he not endorsed his ultimately successful 2018 campaign. “He was dead as a dog, he was a dead politician. He would have been working perhaps for a law firm or doing something else,” Trump told a small group of reporters aboard his plane on Monday afternoon en route to Iowa, where he was to make an appearance that evening. And perhaps the single greatest moment of the day, via the Washington Post reporter on the flight from Florida to Iowa: It had been reported that Trump was workshopping the nickname [“Meatball Ron”]. But he dismissed the idea, calling the moniker “too crude.” DeSantis’ trip to Iowa had a lot of successful elements, and Trump’s had plenty of flaws.  But the side-by-side comparison brings me back to my main thought about King Kong versus Godzilla: We need to see more of Godzilla’s fighting capacities before we can rate his chances. **** Speaking of DeSantis’ fighting capacities….. His decision to make his most significant foreign policy pronouncement of his meta campaign though a Tucker Carlson questionnaire was an interesting one. But not as interesting as the substance of what he said, choosing to side with Trump, America (First), and (effectively) Putin, over the neo-con wing of his party. Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlson Florida Governor @RonDeSantisFL answers our Ukraine questionnaire: “While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural,… https://t.co/1I2elVi6hI 1:02 AM ∙ Mar 14, 2023 4,600Likes916Retweets There is no doubt that the Trump-DeSantis position on Putin is popular with the MAGA wing of the party and Tucker. No doubt. But by taking such a position the way he did, DeSantis is taking at least three risks: 1. He is fishing in Trump’s pond for votes, and a lot of those fish like Trump. 2. He looks to many eyes unserious. 3. He risks forfeiting the chance to become the consensus Stop Trump candidate, alienating important donors, electeds, and thinkers who could in theory be part of a coalition of voices calling on other non-Trump candidates to drop out and unite around the Sunshine State topper. This concept is teased out a bit in the New York Times’ write up of the Tucker moment: Until now, Mr. DeSantis, who has yet to formally announce he’s running for president, has largely avoided talking in specifics about Ukraine since Mr. Putin’s large-scale 2022 invasion. For a leader who takes pride in being aggressively proactive and keeping his opponents on the run, he has been caught flat-footed at times during his recent book tour as reporters have pressed him on the most important question in foreign policy. He flashed irritation at a reporter for The Times of London who pushed Mr. DeSantis on how he proposed Ukraine should be handled differently, given he was attacking Mr. Biden as “weak on the world stage” and failing at deterrence. “Perhaps you should cover some other ground?” Mr. DeSantis said. “I think I’ve said enough.” Republican internationalists and hawkish elements within the party’s donor class were alarmed by that interview and another recent clip on Fox News in which Mr. DeSantis briefly signaled — in a way that was open to multiple interpretations — that he questioned the extent to which defending Ukraine was in America’s national interest. But they remained hopeful that Mr. DeSantis would return to their side. In a Feb. 23 Wall Street Journal column, the influential conservative writer Kimberley A. Strassel all but pleaded with Mr. DeSantis to split from Mr. Trump, who she said was part of a “G.O.P. surrender caucus” on Ukraine. She framed Ukraine’s war with Russia as a major national security question for Mr. DeSantis to answer. Ms. Strassel called it the “G.O.P. field’s first test.” There are about 987 hot button foreign policy and national security questions that Donald Trump has a record on as president and can speak fluidly (if often imprecisely and recklessly) about. We have not heard from DeSantis on any of them in detail. Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, etc. The qualitative research suggests some voter concern that DeSantis might not be as ready as Trump to handle the duties of the presidency. Is fleshing out his foreign policy bona fides by answering questions from Tucker the way to send reassuring signals? Time is not be the one who will tell on that question. * And then there is this: Ron DeSantis @GovRonDeSantis In Florida, we will not back down from the woke mob that is attempting to promote discrimination in our universities. Receiving an education from a university should not involve political indoctrination. 10:30 PM ∙ Mar 13, 2023 12,096Likes1,489Retweets Both King Kong and Godzilla like issuing policy edicts via short homemade videos. Get ready for a lot more of this. **** As for Joe Biden, here is a reader email that speaks to concerns one can and does hear nearly every day from leading Democratic Party officials, as well as each and every Sunday at Lauriol Plaza: Hello again, Mark, Starting from the premise that another Trump presidency would precipitate historic problems that the United States, and maybe the world, could never recover from, please tell me I shouldn’t be worried about the following scenario.  I am two years younger than Joe Biden, and though I’m pretty much holding my own, I have felt a subtle loss of focus and a subtle decline in short-term memory occurring over the past few years.  These same symptoms have been attributed, and maybe misattributed to Biden for a long time, but accurate or not, this phenomenon has been known to descend upon octogenarians. My fear is that Trump will win the Republican nomination, and that in one of the debates, Joe will lose his place and palpably stumble, as he has previously, with half the world watching, and the footage will become the “Daisy” ad of the 21st century. Thereafter, the election would effectively become Trump vs. Kamala Harris, if she’s still on the ticket, because voters will start wondering how Biden will be managing when he’s 85, at the end of his term, or if he’ll even be able to finish it. Her poll numbers are never going to set the world on fire, and Trump will skate back into office. Honestly, I think we’re looking at more than a minimal risk of an unthinkable catastrophe. [NAME REDACTED] PS:  There is a school of thought that postulates that Joe’s problem (and mine) is less a matter of processing speed, and more a matter of an overloaded hard drive with 80 years of data.  I like that theory … makes me feel better. HALPERIN SAYS: Don’t kid yourself; this is a real thing, being discussed by real people close to Joe Biden. **** ESSENTIAL READING * The Associated Press @AP Former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado, has died. She was 82. Schroeder was best known for getting a family leave bill passed, providing job protection for care of a newborn, sick child or parent. apnews.comFormer Rep. Pat Schroeder, pioneer for women’s rights, diesWASHINGTON (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, a pioneer for women’s and family rights in Congress, died Monday night. She was 82. S... 3:33 AM ∙ Mar 14, 2023 589Likes176Retweets * The Washington Post news section and columnist Ruth Marcus both echo the cable news legal punditry class in casting deep doubt on the efficacy of a Trump indictment/convinction on the Stormy Daniels matter. * The Wall Street Journal: Chinese leader Xi Jinping plans to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time since the start of the Ukraine war, likely after he visits Moscow next week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the matter. The meetings with Messrs. Putin and Zelensky, the latter of which is expected to take place virtually, reflect Beijing’s effort to play a more active role in mediating an end to the war in Ukraine, some of the people said. Mr. Xi is considering visiting other European countries as part of his trip to Russia, though his full itinerary has yet to be confirmed, according to the people. 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