Former President Donald Trump has emerged as a leading contender for the presidency in 2024.
He consistently registers first in the polls, and he’s been named as the Republicans’ obvious choice by big-shot politicos… and now some media pundits on the left say the opening is clear for him to take down President Joe Biden.
On Monday David Weigel, a national political correspondent for The Washington Post, tweeted his theory about Trump’s comeback.
“If paid leave doesn’t pass by 2022, I’m 100% sure Trump runs on it in 2024,” Weigel wrote. “Popular policy and easy political argument (Biden couldn’t get it done, I will).”
He later clarified his prediction. “‘Runs on’ is not the same as ‘will do,'” he wrote. “I don’t think he’d pass it, but he could say he would and Democrats won’t have the credibility to say ‘no, we will.'”
Despite criticism that he’s liberal, Weigel is registered to vote as a Republican and he has tweeted pictures of his party registration.
To people arguing in the replies: "Runs on" is not the same as "will do." Trump ran on replacing the ACA with a magical plan that would cover everybody for free. Just saying that Dems wouldn't be able to credibly counter it if they fumble one of their most popular ideas.
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) October 26, 2021
Right, I don't think he'd pass it, but he could say he would and Democrats won't have the credibility to say "no, we will."
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) October 26, 2021
Weigel ended with a joke: “I’ve never been wrong on Twitter, please don’t check.”
In 2017 Weigel reported on a Trump rally, and he tweeted a photo full of empty seats. He later learned that the photo was taken early in the event, before the attendees showed up. He deleted the photo after about 20 minutes, and he apologized over Twitter.
Weigel has admitted to other incorrect predictions in the past. He sometimes writes a year-end column to grapple with all his incorrect predictions from the previous year. For example, he predicted that D.C. would get a vote in the House by 2011, that the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s vacant seat would go to a Democrat, and that former House Speaker Newt Gringrich would lose very, very early in the 2012 Republican primaries.
He later acknowledged all these predictions as wrong, during a series of columns from 2010 and 2011.
In 2000 Weigel voted for the Green Party’s Ralph Nader, he told Reason in 2008. Since then, he’s described his vote as a wrong choice. “I regret the Nader vote,” he told Reason that year.
The Post employs Weigel as a “national political correspondent,” not as a pollster or an election forecaster. In a 2017 tweet, he said that his tweets shouldn’t necessarily be construed as professional-grade stories for the Post. Also, it remains unclear why he predicted 2022 and not, say, 2023.
Still, Trump has remained on the lips of the Twitterati, as he himself has been banned from Twitter.
The Horn editorial team