Trump’s loosening grip on GOP defines early 2024 campaign

[Daily Kos Morning Roundup]( A morning roundup of worthy pundit and news reads, brought to you by Daily Kos. [Click here to read the full web version.]( - [Trump’s loosening grip on GOP defines early 2024 campaign]( Trump’s loosening grip on GOP defines early 2024 campaign, Ally Mutnick and Sarah Ferris, Politico The House Republican Conference is showing in real-time how the former president's standing inside his party is shifting. The Kentucky Republican [Thomas Massie] is far from the only one-time Trump ally who’s staying away from the former president, despite his lead in every major poll so far. Some are looking more seriously at his would-be rivals like DeSantis or Gov. Nikki Haley. Others are intentionally staying on the sidelines but privately hoping he stumbles. That sentiment is deepening throughout the Republican Party — but no segment of the party illustrates the shift as vividly as the House GOP, whose members almost universally backed Trump in both previous races. As of March 1, fewer than 20 House Republicans have formally endorsed Trump in the four months since he declared his third campaign, according to a POLITICO analysis. Roughly another dozen have publicly supported Trump in some way, though short of a formal endorsement. Just one member of House leadership, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), is included in those endorsements. - [There is no lab leak theory]( There is no lab leak theory, Jonathan M Katz, The Racket So first, let’s get something out of the way. A pair of incontrovertible facts underlies most of the lab leak narratives: SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was first detected in the city of Wuhan. And there is at least one lab that studies coronaviruses in Wuhan. But that is not a theory. It isn’t even a hypothesis. It’s just a vibe: two facts, possibly correlated, possibly not, that are a good jumping-off point for formulating a question. And, to be clear, it is a valid question! Though it is a question that has been asked, repeatedly. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal spurred the newest round of question-asking when it published a front-page story headlined: Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, Energy Department Now Says. As we will see in a moment, the story behind the paywall was not nearly as interesting as the headline. But the suggestion of confirmation triggered an avalanche of takes. Nate Silver and Ross Barkan (once again) chided liberals, scientists, and the media for having “suppress[ed] discussion” of the virus’ origins. Alina Chan — a molecular biologist who co-wrote a core text of lab leak lore — crowed to a Boston radio station that she felt “validated.” Jonathan Chait — who it seems is contractually obligated to be wrong about everything these days — took a swing at “dead-enders on the left” who, he claimed, “continue to treat legitimate scientific questions as tantamount to crank beliefs.” - [Bad news: Daily Kos revenue is down, and we might not be able to do all we do. Good news: You are a big part of the solution, and small donors have never let us down. Donate $5 TODAY.]( - [Republicans can’t wait for Trump to implode]( Republicans can’t wait for Trump to implode, Rich Lowry, Politico He’s weaker than he’s been in years — yet still tops the 2024 field. There’s no doubt that Trump has taken on water, and is at his weakest since sometime in the first part of 2016. Ron DeSantis has tended to do better against Trump in head-to-head polling (although he trails in a new Yahoo poll), and Trump has looked vulnerable in all-important Iowa and New Hampshire. Finally, we’ll have to see where DeSantis settles in the polling, if and when he actually gets in the race. All that said, unless Trump’s support in surveys is a complete mirage, he continues to have a formidable grip on the GOP. There’s been a lot of buzz about DeSantis, understandably, who’s done all the right things to establish a national brand, win credibility with populists, and cultivate big donors. But there should be no mistake regarding Trump’s leadership of the party, he can set up like the Texans defending their canon at the Battle of Gonzales and defy his adversaries to “come and take it.” - [How MAGA took over CPAC]( How MAGA took over CPAC, Ryan Lizza, Rachael Bade and Eugene Daniels, Politico Playbook Now, the fate of the Schlapp-era CPAC and Donald Trump himself are tied together. The annual event, which began yesterday in National Harbor, has been abandoned by most top GOP elected officials. Here’s a breakdown: - Senate GOP leadership: None attending. - House GOP leadership: Only ELISE STEFANIK is attending. - GOP governors: Only Idaho Gov. BRAD LITTLE. - GOP presidential candidates, declared and undeclared: Trump, NIKKI HALEY, MIKE POMPEO and VIVEK RAMASWAMY. Outside the MAGA bubble, the event has literally become a punchline. JIMMY KIMMEL and JIMMY FALLON both mocked it in their monologues last night. “CPAC stands for ‘Clowns Periodically Assembling in Convention Centers,’” said Kimmel. “It’s basically Coachella for people who post on Facebook in all caps,” joked Fallon. “After each speech, there will be a QAnon — I’m sorry, Q&A.” - [The weighted politics of the debate over covid-19 origins]( The weighted politics of the debate over covid-19 origins, Philip Bump, The Washington Post Over the weekend, the Journal reported that the Energy Department had come to the conclusion that the pandemic was likely a function of a leak from the Wuhan lab. That determination comes from a classified report given to Congress in which the views of government agencies are indexed. The Energy Department, like the FBI, thinks a lab leak is more likely than a natural emergence. A number of other agencies, though, including the National Intelligence Council, say that natural emergence is more likely. According to the Journal, both those natural emergence theories and the Energy Department’s assessment were offered with “low confidence” — meaning that their assessments are weakened by uncertain evidence or sourcing. In other words, the Journal story was an incremental shift in favor of the lab leak theory, but hardly a determinative one. The Journal’s editorial page, a politically conservative body, nonetheless wasted no time claiming victory. The report is “more evidence that the media and public-health groupthink about Covid was mistaken and destructive.” They also claimed that their April 2020 op-ed from Cotton elevating the lab-leak theory led to “[t]he media conformity caucus immediately derid[ing] Mr. Cotton” as The Post article had … despite our article having been published two months earlier. - [Enjoy the Daily Kos Morning Roundup with a cup of coffee from a Daily Kos mug. Click here to get yours now]( - [Several big-name GOP lawmakers won't go to CPAC this year amid chairman Matt Schlapp's sexual assault scandal]( Several big-name GOP lawmakers won't go to CPAC this year amid chairman Matt Schlapp's sexual assault scandal, Bryan Metzger, Insider The Conservative Political Action Conference kicked off on Wednesday just a few miles south of the Capitol, offering Republican lawmakers easy and quick access to what's historically been a major gathering of conservative activists and party faithful from around the country. But despite that close proximity, several prominent Republicans are skipping the event this year, including potential presidential contenders like former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri are among the big-name Republican senators who attended the conference in Florida last year but are not scheduled to speak this year. Both senators told Insider at the Capitol on Tuesday that they didn't even know if they'd been invited — and a spokeswoman for CPAC did not respond to Insider's request for comment asking whether they had. - [Finally, Democrats appear ready to wage war on Fox News]( Finally, Democrats appear ready to wage war on Fox News, Greg Sargent, The Washington Post Now, however, it’s becoming clear that interacting with Fox News as a news outlet in any sense is no longer an option for Democrats. In light of the news that network personalities knowingly deceived viewers about the 2020 election for cynical pecuniary purposes, Democrats plainly have to take on Fox News in a new way. And some of them know it. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a moment like this, where a major news network has been exposed as deliberately deluding its viewers or readers,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told me. “This is a seminal moment in the history of mass media. And we need to treat it that way.” [Would a large GOP presidential field help Trump? Not necessarily.]( Would a large GOP presidential field help Trump? Not necessarily., Henry Olsen, The Washington Post It’s easy in retrospect to see why this happened. Republican voters behaved exactly as I described in my 2015 book, “The Four Faces of the Republican Party.” When a voter’s first choice drops out, she or he always looks for the second-best choice. For most Republicans, Trump — and not his rivals — was closer to their views than either Cruz or Kasich. Trump’s 2016 strength was the polar opposite of what it is now. Today, he is the choice of the most-committed conservatives, but those voters were Cruz’s bastion two presidential cycles ago. Exit polls showed that Cruz won voters who called themselves very conservative in almost every state. He even carried them in Indiana despite being clobbered statewide. Cruz lost because moderate Republicans were Trump’s primary base, and the party’s decisive swing vote — the “somewhat conservatives” — preferred Trump to the man who had risen to national prominence by tarnishing them as RINOs. ICYMI: Popular stories from the past week you won't want to miss: - [Trump-loving Republican said something awful enough that his peers actually voted to censure him]( - [House votes 414-2 on Turkey earthquake resolution. Guess who the two 'no' votes were]( - [Marjorie Taylor Greene's chief of staff freaks out after being fact-checked]( Want even more Daily Kos? Check out our podcasts: - [The Brief: A one-hour weekly political conversation hosted by Markos Moulitsas and Kerry Eleveld]( - [The Downballot: Daily Kos' podcast devoted to downballot elections. New episodes every Thursday]( Want to write your own stories? [Log in]( or [sign up]( to post articles and comments on Daily Kos, the nation's largest progressive community. 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