Amid all the other uncertainties surrounding the possible indictment of Donald Trump, the flurry of events has made one thing unequivocally clear: the former president remains the center of the GOP universe.
The rush of GOP leaders to preemptively condemn Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s potential indictment of Trump as inherently illegitimate and politically motivated underscores the party leadership’s ongoing reluctance to separate itself from, much less criticize, Trump in almost any way. Republican leaders in the House have quickly moved in the opposite direction, demanding documents from Bragg and promising to investigate the investigators.
These rapid-fire events have been a reality check for those in the party who believed, or at least hoped, that Trump’s influence over the GOP had peaked. After the party’s disappointing performance in last November’s midterm election, which included losses for multiple Trump-endorsed Senate and gubernatorial candidates in key swing states, an unprecedented procession of GOP strategists, local leaders and fundraisers openly insisted that the party needed to move on from him in 2024. But the blistering attacks on the New York investigation by figures like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and former Vice President Mike Pence quickly demonstrated how difficult that will be to do in practice.
“You would think they would have learned their lesson” from Trump’s defeat in 2020 and the GOP’s surprisingly weak showing in 2022, said Jennifer Horn, a former state Republican party chair in New Hampshire, who has emerged as a staunch Trump critic. “It’s like they are addicted to him. The GOP can’t break their addiction to Trump.”
But while the reaction has demonstrated the depths of Trump’s hold on the party’s elected leaders, it may be premature to assume that an indictment in New York – or potentially…
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