GOP Presidential 'Debate', Can Trump Legally Run Again?

Mike and Jay open the episode with a discussion of the first Republican presidential debate, featuring eight GOP presidential hopefuls with runaway favorite Donald Trump noticeably absent. Neither Jay nor Mike thinks what we saw was an actual debate, but they did find some value in hearing what the candidates had to say about supporting Donald Trump, immigration, abortion rights, and Ukraine. They also discuss Trump’s decision to skip the debate in favor of counter-programming a pre-taped interview with Tucker Carlson on X. Is Donald Trump even constitutionally eligible to run again? Mike and Jay consider the argument that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars Trump from running. It’s not some crazy liberal notion, but a lengthy and well-researched argument of two well-respected conservative legal scholars. Mike finds the logic convincing and while Jay says there’s something to it, he doesn’t think that Trump can be barred from running without some sort of authoritative legal finding. Mike disagrees but argues that Trump shouldn’t be barred because of the horrendous repercussions of such a ruling. The Politics Guys on Facebook | X (formerly Twitter) Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo we’re @PoliticsGuys.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesThe Politics Guys on Facebook | XListener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys.The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.