The 2024 Election Will Be A Referendum On Jan. 6

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Republicans Are Baldly Turning Jan. 6 Into A Rallying Cry

Let me set the scene here briefly.

On Thursday, Donald Trump was welcomed back to the scene of his greatest crime by elected Republicans in thrall of his power over the party’s base. No one on the Hill was more gushy about Trump that day than Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Here she is in an on-camera interview with my former TPM colleague Lauren Fox:

As I noted at the time, it felt like the whitewashing of Jan. 6 was complete. But I may have undersold it. Republicans aren’t just minimizing Jan. 6 as a tourist incident or a legal assault on hapless MAGA adherents ushered into the Capitol by complicit police. They’re baldly using it as a rallying cry now. Yeah, we did it. So what? What are you going to do about it?

Two days after Trump’s scandalous return to the Hill, Greene spoke at a Turning Point Action event in Detroit and doubled down on all things Jan. 6.

“Anyone that wants to continue to shame us for January 6th can go to hell,” Greene told a raucous audience.

Greene’s election opponent this year posted an extended excerpt of her Michigan speech where she was bragging about her role on Jan. 6, based on her belief that Trump had won her home state of Georgia, despite no evidence to that effect:

Note her initial line there: A civil war started on Election Day 2020 when Democrats stole the presidency from Trump. A lot about the last four years can be encapsulated by the notion that one side in American politics is fighting a cold civil war, and the other side is totally bewildered by it. That’s not what war fighters mean when they refer to an asymmetric battlefield, but the asymmetry is stark as hell.

In some ways, none of this is new. Trump himself is out there claiming every week that the 2020 election was stolen, so his followers are only following his cue. But if you thought elected Republicans might memory hole Jan. 6 for the duration of the 2024 campaign, or downplay it, or try to sidestep it, nope.

Consider how powerful it will be in the MAGA mind for Trump to win this time. It would vindicate — to them — their 2020 election theft claims. It would set up years of investigations of those supposedly responsible for the theft. Trump would of course follow through on his promise to pardon J6 defendants. But beyond that it would empower him and Hill Republicans to rewrite the history of Jan. 6 and commemorate it in ways that boggle the mind. Think: memorial plaque where Ashli Babbitt was shot.

If Trump wins in November, we may very well be living in a world where Jan. 6 is a national holiday. Let that sink in.

Real Accountability For Jan. 6 Is Slipping Sway

Katherine Miller: The System Isn’t Built for Jan. 6, and Neither Are We

Steve Bannon Not Eligible For Club Fed

Steven Bannon’s pending criminal trial in the “We Build The Wall” fraud case renders him ineligible for cushiest level of federal prison, the minimum security “Club Fed,” CNN reports. So he’ll be reporting instead to a low-security prison in Danbury, Connecticut, to serve his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. He is due to report by July 1.

Just Saying …

Morning Memo is not claiming any credit for a headline change at the NYT yesterday, but within a couple of hours of MM’s critique of its headline about a new Biden campaign ad hanging Trump’s criminal conviction around his neck, the headline was changed.

Before and after:

Trending …

One of those occasions where the coincidence of similar stories with the same basic thrust landing on the same day helps to reinforce the point:

• WSJ: Antiabortion Lawsuits Leaned on Discredited, Disputed Research
• NYT: Case after case challenging gun restrictions cites the same Georgetown professor. His seemingly independent work has undisclosed ties to pro-gun interests.

Power Play By Conservative Federal Judges In Texas

In a move that will make venue-shopping easier in the conservative Northern District of Texas, judges there approved a new rule that will automatically “stay for 21 days any decisions to transfer civil cases to courts outside of the jurisdiction of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals,” Reuters reports.

For The Record

In a new ruling — that starts with “There are two sexes: male and female” — a federal judge blocked the Biden administrations new Title IX rules intended to protect transgender students from going into effect in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia. A Louisiana federal judge last week similarly blocked the new rules in Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.

Quote Of The Day

But let’s be crystal clear: if Democrats take the coward’s way out and sign our names to a half-baked deal that lets the wealthy off the hook, it will be a huge failure — and one the American people cannot afford.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), on how to handle the 2025 expiration of the Trump tax cuts

Double Norcrossed

I don’t know South Jersey politics very well, and so I’ve always wondered whether George Norcross was the real deal or a character that journalists needed because we love throwing around descriptions like powerbroker, political boss, kingmaker, and machine pol. But his indictment yesterday by the state attorney general on racketeering charges (which also ensnared his brother, his lawyer, a former Camden mayor, a trucking company executive and a real estate developer) paints a picture of Norcross that was everything news accounts have conveyed over the years and more. The cherry on top was Norcross personally showing up at the attorney general’s press conference announcing the indictment and plopping down on the front row:

Bob Menendez Corruption Trial Is Grinding Along

WaPo: Five memorable moments in the corruption trial of Bob Menendez

2024 Ephemera

• VA-05: Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) is trying to survive a primary challenge today from a Trump-backed MAGA candidate, all the result of Good (who himself is crazy conservative) initially backed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primary.
• Philip Bump: Trumpworld keeps overstating Trump’s support among Black voters

High On Their Own Supply

I wrote a little bit yesterday about the inanity of presidential debates — and to be fair I only focused on mainstream news coverage. Meanwhile, over in wackadoodle land:

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