There is no such thing as an October surprise

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

What was the first surprise of this election in October? Was it a stevedore strike on the East Coast? Is there a threat of a hot war between Israel and Iran? Or was it the release of special counsel Jack Smith's 165-page application, unsealed yesterday, in the federal case against Donald Trump for subverting the 2020 presidential election?

The answer is almost certainly option D: none of the above. (And by the way, it's only October 3rd.)

Smith's filing is intended to convince Judge Tanya Chutkan that the charges against Trump still stand despite a Supreme Court decision this summer granting presidents criminal immunity for actions taken in their official capacity. It offers the most detailed portrait yet of Trump's paperwork coup and his apparent malicious indifference to the ransacking of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

David A. Graham: The Paperwork Coup

The filing does not change existing understanding of what happened in the weeks between Election Day 2020 and the insurrection, but adds new information. Perhaps the most horrifying detail concerns Trump's reaction to the news that Vice President Mike Pence was evacuated from the Capitol due to a threat to his life. According to Smith, the president simply looked at the adviser who delivered the message and said, “So what?” Overall, the file underscores how serious a threat Trump was and is to the rule of law and American democracy.

Still, don't expect much of a public reaction. The idea of ​​an “October Surprise,” a breaking story that changes the course of events, dates back to the Ronald Reagan era and is here to stay. There were two candidates in the 2016 presidential election campaign: the Access Hollywood Tape of Trump bragging about sexual assault and the reopening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, which may actually have tipped the scales. But like many remnants of Reaganism, the October surprise appears to be a thing of the past.

The defining characteristic of the 2024 presidential election is gridlock. The only thing that seriously changed the opinion polls was the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the race and the replacement of him by Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket. Nothing else — not Biden's disastrous debate, not the first assassination attempt on Trump, not the second — has caused a major shift in the polls. In the poll average of 538, Harris fluctuated between 44.2 and 48.6 percent of the vote, mostly with a gradual increase. That's a narrow margin compared to previous candidates' polling averages, but Trump remained between 43.3 and 45.8 percent – a margin of just 2.5 percentage points.

Read: The journalist who screamed betrayal

This stability reflects the calcified state of American politics today: Americans are evenly divided politically and deeply polarized in their opinions. Voters have had a lot of contact with Trump and have generally formed an opinion about him.

The reality of horse racing aside, Smith's record shows why January 6th should Trump hurt. As a prosecutor, Smith is only making allegations and the evidence has not been tried in court, but the document underscores how egregious Trump's alleged behavior was.

In Smith's report, Trump knew he was lying about winning the 2020 election. He incited the insurrection at the Capitol. And of course, these actions had nothing to do with his official role as president. Smith also claims that he has forensic and other evidence showing that Trump spent the afternoon of the riot doing exactly what many people suspected: sitting in the White House, watching Fox News and scrolling through Twitter and talking for hours refuse to do anything to calm the rioters or defend the Capitol.

David A. Graham: The Trump Trials: A Guide

Trump's flippant “So what?” The reaction to the news that Pence had been evacuated wasn't just cold-hearted. It shows he only cared about winning, regardless of the facts or the cost. He didn't care that Pence had diligently belittled himself to defend Trump throughout his administration, nor that Pence genuinely didn't believe he had the power to give Trump the election. “You’re too honest,” Trump taunted, according to Pence.

Trump has long made it clear that loyalty is his top priority. He told FBI Director James Comey in January 2017, and when Comey wasn't respectful enough, Trump fired him a few months later. During this week's vice presidential debate, Democrat Tim Walz warned Republican JD Vance about how his vice president might treat him based on past experiences. “When Mike Pence made the decision to certify this election, that’s why Mike Pence is not on this stage,” Walz said.

Read: Jack Smith doesn't back down

Pence failed the loyalty test, and he wasn't just dead to Trump; Trump apparently didn't care if he was dead. When Trump treats a close ally this way, he leaves little doubt about how he would treat anyone else. But to anyone who has been paying attention over the past few years, none of this information is at all surprising, nor will it be remembered as an October surprise.