Axios Sneak Peek

March 13, 2024
Welcome back to Sneak. Smart Brevity™ count: 982 words ... 3½ minutes.
1 big thing: Trump floods the zone
Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
With yesterday triggering the start of a 34-week general election campaign, critics of former President Trump are imploring voters and the media to hold the presumptive GOP nominee to the same standard as any politician.
Why it matters: For eight years, the hurricane of news conjured by Trump's unprecedented behavior and rhetoric has enraged, exhilarated and eventually numbed much of the American public.
- Many voters have tuned out — or priced in — Trump's baggage and legal issues to the point where he's now favored to defeat President Biden in November, according to RCP's polling average.
- A Suffolk poll out today found that 49% of voters now approve of Trump's job performance as president — matching the highest point he ever reached in office.
The big picture: Financial Times columnist Ed Luce calls this phenomenon "the banality of chaos."
- Trump's candidacy is "so far off the charts it is almost paranormal," Luce writes, but most of the former president's controversies no longer break through to the public.
- In 2018, former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon argued that the best way to neutralize the media — which he labeled "the real opposition" — is to "flood the zone with shit."
Mission accomplished, Luce argues — citing events from the last five days alone:
- On Friday, Trump posted a nearly $92 million bond in a New York court to appeal damages a jury ordered him to pay to writer E. Jean Carroll after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
- On Saturday, Trump mocked Biden's lifelong stutter and called the journalists attending his rally in Georgia "criminals."
- On Sunday, Hungary's authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Trump promised him that he will end Russia's war with Ukraine by not giving "a single penny" in aid.
- On Monday, Trump vowed to free "wrongfully imprisoned" Jan. 6 rioters as one of his first acts if he's re-elected in November.
- On Tuesday, CNN's Jim Sciutto reported in his new book that Trump privately had praised Adolf Hitler for doing "some good things," according to former chief of staff John Kelly.
There's plenty more to choose from — including Trump's false claim today that Democrats used "artificial intelligence" to create a montage of his gaffes in yesterday's House hearing with former special counsel Robert Hur.
The other side: Biden — who, like Trump, clinched his party's nomination after yesterday's primaries — is fighting another side of the "Americans tuning out" equation.
- Biden has gotten little credit in the polls for the strong U.S. economy, while concerns over his Israel policy, his age and his frequent gaffes tend to dominate media coverage.
- FiveThirtyEight's average of polls suggests Biden's energetic State of the Union address has not produced a bump in his approval rating, which currently sits at a low of 38%.
2. 📱 Dems fear TikTok revolt
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
House Democrats are warning that the TikTok bill passed today risks intensifying their party's problems with young voters heading into the 2024 election, Axios' Andrew Solender reports.
Why it matters: Young voters have made up the backbone of the Democratic coalition in recent elections, but both parties have ramped up their courtship of the critical voting bloc this year.
- Young voters have railed against Biden for his continued support of Israel as it conducts military operations in Gaza.
- Trump opposed the TikTok bill despite his past efforts to ban the app, while Biden said he would sign it.
Driving the news: The bill, which would require Chinese-based ByteDance to divest from TikTok, passed 352–65–1 today.
- 155 Democrats voted for the bill along with 197 Republicans, and 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans voted against it.
The intrigue: The bill produced some strange bedfellows: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (D-Ga.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) both voted against it, for example.
- Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-N.C.) — who has 2.5 million followers on TikTok — voted for the bill.
What they're saying: "You pile this on top of Gaza — very different reasons for concern, but yes, you could push people away," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who voted for the bill, told Axios.
- Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a leading opponent of the bill, called it "horrific politics," comparing it to "taking away your phone and not allowing you to text."
3. 👀 RFK Jr.'s intrigue play

A day after floating Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura as potential running mates, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told ABC News he had made his decision.
- The independent presidential candidate plans to announce his VP pick at a campaign event in Oakland on March 26, Axios' Erin Doherty reports.
Why it matters: Teasing out the selection process and joining forces with a celebrity like Rodgers, Ventura or Mike Rowe — the host of "Dirty Jobs" — could significantly boost the Kennedy campaign's national profile.
- Kennedy has already qualified for the ballot in Utah and collected the necessary signatures to appear on the ballot in at least six more states, including three battlegrounds.
The intrigue: Rodgers, a vaccine skeptic, was reportedly in Costa Rica on an ayahuasca trip when the news broke about Kennedy's VP shortlist, according to ESPN's Pat McAfee.
4. 🗣️ Britt laughs off SOTU backlash

Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) joked on Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) podcast that she was "pretty pumped" that Scarlett Johansson played her in SNL's skit mocking her State of the Union rebuttal last week.
- "How come you get a gorgeous movie star? That is a real compliment that you ought to be pretty psyched with," Cruz responded.
The big picture: Britt has come under scrutiny for misconstruing a human trafficking victim's story to attack Biden's border policies.
- The Alabama senator didn't address the controversy on Cruz's podcast, but accused "the liberal media" of "burying the truth about Joe Biden and his border crisis."
- "I mean, my crime was putting too much passion, too much heart and soul behind the issues that I genuinely care about, and they slaughtered me across the airwaves," Britt said.
📬 Thanks for reading tonight. This newsletter was copy edited by Brad Bonhall.
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