12th March 2024
On the first day of Spring the US Presidential race was focused on by Seamus Gunn and Greg Hughes in particular our contributor highlighting the various different cases pending against Donald Trump and his attempt to have them delayed/postponed until the election race is run. He referenced the key strategy being adopted, the most recent being Donald Trumps’s claim to immunity from prosecution as an ex-president, a claim which our contributor said had failed on 2 occasions to date and was now scheduled for further hearing by the Supreme Court on the 22nd of April. He said that while, he was of the view that this was doomed to fail, it had the desired political outcome resulting in the postponement of the Election Subversion Allegation being 1 of a number of Criminal Trials that remain ongoing which was scheduled for the 4th of March. He said that with submissions and adjudication thereafter this could bring this matter into the summer. He was of the view that if this was the outcome then it was highly unlikely that a Criminal Prosecution would proceed before the election took place in November as it was not customary for presidential candidates to be pursued in this manner in the last months before an election, however referencing that these were unchartered waters. He said parallel to this there was the ballot eligibility cases, 3 States having ruled that Donald Trump was not eligible for the ballot due to the 14th Constitutional Amendment to prevent anyone involved in insurrection standing for election. He said he was never in favour of this argument as this case remained unproved. He said that when it was heard on the 8th of February the Supreme Court were sceptical and he anticipated that when a ruling was handed down the decisions of Illinois, Colorado and Maine would be reversed, thus giving a further boost to the Trump campaign. Greg Hughes referenced the ageism issues now being raised in respect of both camps. Our contributor was of the view that the candidates were evenly matched on age, with only 4 years between them. He thought it was remiss of both the republicans and the democrats that they did not bring forward a candidate that would appeal to a younger generation. He said that it was going to be the middle ground that would decide the election and considered that it was the candidate who was disliked the least that would be successful, only time will tell…