Is Trump’s Threat, Well, Threatening?

"After the Texas case was dismissed on Dec. 11, Mr. Trump began pushing for the Justice Department to file its own lawsuit against the states directly in the Supreme Court...Trump at one point planned to bypass the attorney general" by @JessBravin @sgurman https://t.co/PzVHkZucjH

— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) January 24, 2021

I want to start there because, even if Trump had fired the acting AG and prompted a mass resignation, it would have been a crisis in the DOJ and a political blunder making Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre look like a garden party, but it wouldn’t have been a “Constitutional crisis,” much less a coup attempt. What Trump was attempting was another way to the Supremes, but he was never gonna get there and he was a horrible President, with or without that final evidence.

The other scary bedtime story is that Trump will start a third party if the Senate doesn’t agree to fold again. 

Trump is facing a second impeachment but doesn't have a leg affairs director whipping senate votes for him/anyone on his final WH staff w strong senate GOP ties. So he is making feints about primarying people but with no actual apparatus to scare folks with right now.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 24, 2021

"He's golfing," said one adviser when I asked how rigorously he's focused at the moment on candidate recruitment against the 10 House GOPers who went against him.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 24, 2021

But right now he barely has a legal team for impeachment. He has political advisers who typically work in GOP politics. Creating a third party is actually really hard.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 24, 2021

And it is contradictory to say “I’m doing a third party” as well as “I’m primarying Republicans.” You might be able to do one but you can’t do both. All this is to say that while people have learned the hard way not to dismiss Trump, not all of his endeavors are identical.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 24, 2021

And besides:

The view from a former McConnell adviser on the strength of the AZ flex > https://t.co/QNZaIzbdCc

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 24, 2021

Yeah , Trump could do something if he wanted to. But “something” would require more than a tweet, and he can’t even do that now. He’s an ex-President, a one-termer. That’s as spent a force as American politics has. And Trump is no Clinton, no Obama. He’s not a natural politician. He was a fluke, a creature of a moment that has passed. Trump isn’t even Nixon; he won’t make a comeback, or, more laughably, be a king-maker. And the majority of the Senate knows this.

Instead he's mentioned to a very few advisers - meaning almost none of them - the notion of creating a third party, which he told advisers couldn't help win a presidential race in 2000 when he didn't seek the Reform Party line.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 24, 2021

This is not to say he will not be able to stoke supporters in primaries, and is not to say some of his family members, in particularly his oldest son, won't be effective in campaigning against House incumbents. Polling since Jan 6 shows why he'll remain a force if he wants to.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 24, 2021