Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Nixon said 'I am not a crook.' Trump: 'I am one, and I need to be one.'

Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet.

EJ Dionne, Jr/Washington Post:

Trump’s immunity claims tell voters all they need to know about him

Trump is saying something no other presidential candidate has ever said: That the only way to be an effective president is to be willing to break the law. “A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents,” his lawyers wrote in their brief. “That would be the end of the Presidency as we know it and would irreparably damage our Republic.”

Greg Sargent/The New Republic:

Trump’s Weird Moment With Mike Johnson Reveals a Deeper GOP Sickness Many prominent Republicans in competitive races are in full thrall to the deranged election-denialism that Donald Trump has required of them.

It’s easy to see how January 6 will become an issue in these contests. Reporters will surely ask these election deniers how they’ll conduct themselves on Jan. 6, 2025, which will come after the new Congress is sworn in. Would they vote to certify Biden’s electors if he has defeated Trump and the latter has lost all efforts to litigate the outcome in court?

That might not be so easy for these candidates to answer in the affirmative, given today’s MAGA-fied GOP, which treats election losses as illegitimate by definition. If Democrats are doing their jobs, they’ll ensure that these Republicans are pressed to field this question.

It’s the ultimate tell that Trump himself also wants House GOP candidates subjected to this sort of January 6th-related litmus test. Just before holding his presser with Johnson, Trump launched an attack on a sitting Congressman, Dan Newhouse of Washington State, endorsing his “MAGA” primary opponent and slamming Newhouse as a “weak and pathetic RINO.”

It’s about right and wrong. And weak men like Sununu are wrong.

Eric Lach/New Yorker:

Donald Trump’s Trial of the Century

Manhattan prosecutors have argued that the Stormy Daniels case—the first criminal trial of a former President in American history—is about much more than hush money. And legal experts believe that a conviction is likely.

Many legal experts believe that a guilty verdict is likely. “I think Bragg has shown he wouldn’t have said yes unless he thought this was a really good case,” Andrew Weissmann—a New York University law professor and a former member of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation—told me. It is in many ways a straightforward fraud case, with a paper trail of evidence, and a defendant with a strong motive to commit the crime.

And yet the case has also provoked heated debate among legal scholars and former prosecutors. Last year, after the indictment was announced, a Boston University law professor named Jed Shugerman wrote a blunt Op-Ed in the Times titled “The Trump Indictment Is a Legal Embarrassment.” Shugerman is no Trump fan; he just had questions about the strength of the case. “Even if it survives a challenge that could reach the Supreme Court, a trial would most likely not start until at least mid-2024, possibly even after the 2024 election,” he wrote

….

There’s an old saying in American politics that a campaign’s most precious resource is the candidate’s time. Four days a week during the next month and a half, Trump will be in Merchan’s courtroom, where cameras and cell phones are not allowed, cut off from the rest of the world. In addition to Cohen and Daniels, witnesses may include the former White House communications director Hope Hicks, the former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, and other Trumpworld figures. It’s like the “Seinfeld” finale, with all these bit players coming back as the protagonist faces legal consequences. If he’s found guilty, legal experts are split on what kind of consequences he’d face. Falsifying records in the first degree is subject to up to four years in prison, and a five-thousand-dollar fine. But, if Trump is convicted, Merchan will have discretion when deciding on a sentence. As a first-time offender, jail time isn’t a sure thing. And the Constitution does not prohibit a convicted felon from serving as President.

Legal expert, huh? Well, especially when it comes to Trump, that’s just your opinion, man.

Haaretz:

Fending Off Iran Attack Is a Major Israeli Achievement. Retaliation Would Risk an All-out Regional War

Biden is pressuring Netanyahu to avoid a retaliatory airstrike in Iran, urging him to instead focus on the successful interception of drones and rockets ■ If Netanyahu does not abide, Hezbollah will unleash its forces and join the war - just as Sinwar has been aiming for since Oct. 7

The system relies on a network made of sensors deployed in different countries. Israel contributed advanced discovery and interception capabilities through its multi-layer defense systems. The other partners initially contributed radars deployed close to Iran's border. Throughout the first six months of the war, there have been various signs of the work of the regional defense system, dubbed by the Americans as MEAD (Middle East Air Defense Alliance).

The fruits of this alliance were evident in full for the first time in the early hours of Sunday morning. The Iranians fired over 300 drones and missiles of various types with only minimal success. A few ballistic missiles fell in open areas, mostly in the Negev in southern Israel. A 7-year-old Bedouin girl suffered severe injuries. Some damage was caused to an air force base in the South. The rest of the munition fired at Israel was intercepted with a success rate of close to 99 percent. A significant portion of the threats were intercepted outside of Israeli territory, in the skies over Jordan and Iraq (where most of the operations were conducted by the U.S.).

This suggests that if the war widens, it’s Netanyahu’s fault. And it’s not wrong.

David Rothkopf/Daily Beast:

U.S. Must Pull Out All the Stops to Avoid a Regional War After Iran Attacks Israel

The Biden administration helped put together an unprecedented defense of Israel against Iran’s aerial attack.

The Biden administration closely coordinated with the Israelis and with other regional powers and helped orchestrate an unprecedented defense of Israel that reportedly included the active involvement of the U.S., the U.K., and regional actors like Jordan.

That Israel’s neighbors, like Jordan, intervened to help defend it could be another of the most significant developments that came out of the unprecedented direct attack on Israel from Iran—and one that sent a strong signal to Iran that in the new Middle East, they were largely isolated.

Nicholas Grossman/Daily Beast:

What if Putin Doesn’t Want Peace?

Calls for the U.S. to push Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war require assuming a peace-minded Russia that doesn’t exist.

The underlying logic is that American support makes the Ukrainians overconfident—including in 2023’s costly and largely unsuccessful counteroffensive—and the U.S. doesn’t mind sacrificing an indefinite number of Ukrainians to hurt Russia. Therefore, weakening Ukraine by withdrawing aid would encourage them to pursue reasonable accommodation. In this vision, Ukraine concedes land Russia currently controls and formally promises never to join NATO, the U.S. guarantees it, and the violence finally ends.

In The Nation, Adolph Reed, Jr. says he’s “outraged at Biden’s adventurist bellicosity in Eastern Europe” with “rhetoric to stoke hostilities between Russia and Ukraine,” and claims the United States “seems hell-bent on fighting to the last Ukrainian.”

Reed doesn’t try to explain how the U.S. supposedly tricked or forced Russia into massing 190,000 troops and invading in 2022, nor tricked Ukraine into resisting Russia’s assault when they supposedly want to surrender. He assumes that Russia wants peace, the United States wants war, and Ukraine has no agency, so war it is.