Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
On Jan. 23, 2016, Donald Trump was campaigning in Iowa when he made a remarkable announcement: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"
Unfortunately, with less than two weeks to go until the 2024 election, it appears that despite the absurdity of that statement Trump might have been right.
He’s a convicted felon. He’s been impeached twice. There are a multitude of other criminal charges still outstanding. Yet polls indicate he is running neck-and-neck with Kamala Harris.
An ABC-Ipsos poll conducted in April — after he was found guilty in a hush money case in New York — indicated only 4 percent of Trump supporters said they would not vote for him and 16 percent said they would reconsider it.
Despite all that and The New York Times recently reporting that “the 78-year-old former president’s speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past,” Trump’s supporters are standing by him.
And leading Republicans are ignoring his behavior.
On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper had Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on his program. Tapper noted that Trump has referred to Democrats as “the enemy from within” and threatened to use the military against fellow Americans. He then played a clip in which Trump said:
“The bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they're the big — and it should be very easily handled by — if necessary, by the National Guard or if really necessary by the military, because they can't let that happen.”
Johnson responded by saying, “Jake, you know that's not what he's talking about there. What he's talking about is marauding gangs of dangerous, violent people.”
But Tapper pushed back, quoting Trump again and saying the former president was specifically talking about former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
As I listen to the excuses and denials by the speaker of the House and so many other members of Congress, I can’t help but wonder if there is anything that Trump could say or do that would change the minds of his supporters.
And that is what is so frustrating for Americans who believe in the ageless human, religious and philosophical values of truth, trust, reason and civility, and believe in the dignity of people across all cultural, economic, political, racial and gender demographics. It just doesn’t seem to matter.
Maggie Haberman of The New York Times summed it up well: “Trump is a really difficult figure to cover because he challenges news media processes every day, has for years. The systems ... were not built to deal with somebody who says things that are not true as often as he does or speaks as incoherently as he often does. I think the media has actually done a good job showing people who he is, what he says, what he does.”
The sentiment was echoed by Tom Rosenstiel, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland. “The people who don’t like or are infuriated by him cannot believe his success and would like the press to somehow persuade the people who do like him that they are wrong,” he said. “And the press can’t do that.”
Many Americans have already voted, either by mail or at early in-person locations. Those who have not yet cast a ballot need journalists to provide an accurate portrayal of Donald Trump, holding him to account for his words, just like Tapper did on Sunday.
Yet will any of that make any difference? Or was Trump correct back in January 2016?
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.