screengrab from https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/ee51e63a-ed08-11e8-8b47-bd0975fd6199

A continuously-developing story puts Donald Trump on the phone with a Ukrainian leader, telling that leader to continue investigations into corruption that include former Vice President Joe Biden. The reporting stems from a whistleblower report that the Washington Post got its hands on. Since the story originally broke, we appear to have confirmed Ukraine is the nation, and Biden was the intended target of Trump’s negotiation tactic (allegedly, continuing the investigation was a condition for improving U.S. relations).

Naturally, you have people on the right defending the President and people on the left (and some from the right) attacking him. Rudy Giuliani appears to be both trying to confirm the story while also saying it’s totally fine.

A President telling a Pres-elect of a well known corrupt country he better investigate corruption that affects US is doing his job. Maybe if Obama did that the Biden Family wouldn’t have bilked millions from Ukraine and billions from China; being covered up by a Corrupt Media.

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) September 20, 2019

There are some who would lead you to believe that this is Silver Bullet v.263, which is totally guaranteed to take Trump out this time (they swear it!). Even if you were Trump skeptical, there are some facts here that must be taken into account:

1. Every so-called silver bullet has failed so far.
2. Trump’s base isn’t deserting him.
3. The Democrats are not offering any reason to elect one of their own to replace Trump.

Think about this for a moment: Trump may actually be guilty of something here, but Trump is always suspected of being guilty. That is nothing new. The Democrats, however, are vowing to go to the extremes on every social issue, and those extremes don’t actually poll well. Primarily because they scare the hell out of most Americans.

Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate Biden for corruption vs.

• Democrats outright claiming they’ll come into your homes and take your guns.
• Abortion up to and just after birth.
• Jacking up taxes.
• Getting rid of Americans’ private insurance.
• Making Americans pay reparations.

The list goes on.

That doesn’t excuse Trump if he did break the law. That’s a pretty big no-no. Being President of the United States doesn’t grant you automatic immunity. However, the American people are going to weigh this against the many things Democrats say they want to force Americans to comply with. If you think that Americans will choose the Democrats over Trump, you fail to remember 2016.

Trump isn’t bulletproof by any means. He is vulnerable. Joe Biden could still give him a run for his money. Warren, if she managed to topple Biden, would have a maybe primary victory and the full backing of her party and many moderate voters to challenge Trump. He is beatable, and that won’t change. However, the Democrats are also extremely beatable, and right now they are doing a great job of beating themselves.

I don’t expect this story will do any more damage than other stories have. If it’s true, I don’t like that he’s done it and I don’t approve of the tactic. But, if it becomes like every other Trump silver bullet and doesn’t even hit him, much less land a devastating blow, then the people pushing these attacks are going to have to stop and wonder what they’re doing wrong.

Of course, even when they do that, they usually come to the wrong conclusions. That will be the difference between the Democrats and Trump in the coming year.