If there were any doubts that the Republican Party continues to revolve around Donald Trump, the party’s officials dispelled them Tuesday as the former president sat in Manhattan court and officially became a criminal defendant.
From the GOP’s highest-ranking legislators to its most attention-starved backbenchers, its most ardent MAGA firebreathers to its most consistent Trump critics, the party displayed remarkable consistency in closing ranks around their once—and potentially future—presidential standard-bearer.
In tweets, statements, and media interviews, all Republican lawmakers who talked about Trump’s case on Tuesday did so with varying levels of concern and outrage at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.’s decision to charge Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to alleged hush money payments.
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The most unifying point for Republicans was to cast the indictment as flimsy and politically motivated—and to support a congressional counter-investigation, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) did Tuesday night.
Even Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), the only senator to twice convict Trump at his impeachment trials, argued Bragg had “stretched to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda.”
One of the first GOP senators to comment was Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)—who is sometimes accused back home of being insufficiently supportive of Trump—who called it “a politically-motivated prosecution” and supported House GOP efforts to investigate Bragg.
Naturally, Trump’s closest allies made these same points more loudly, more harshly, more often, and more absurdly.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), for instance, tweeted about the indictment no fewer than 14 different times on Tuesday.
The far-right Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), meanwhile, tweeted a photo of himself with Trump and exhorted his followers to “take the pledge: I STAND WITH OUR PRESIDENT, DONALD J. TRUMP.”
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Trump’s former White House physician, tweeted about the indictment numerous times in apocalyptic language, accusing President Joe Biden of having his “political opponents arrested” in a graphic alongside Hitler and Stalin.
“Hey FAT ALVIN,” Jackson taunted, “go ahead and celebrate with another jelly donut, but get ready to answer some serious questions from Congress!”
To be sure, there were conspicuous gaps in Trump’s GOP armor. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), for instance, has yet to comment at all about the indictment, even as his House counterpart frequently speaks up.
Across Capitol Hill, there are real signs Trump’s support has waned as lawmakers seem anxious for an alternative in the 2024 race. Indeed, many rank-and-file Republicans have chosen to remain silent since news of the indictment broke on Friday.
But the indictment has appeared to force a shift in internal dynamics around Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, with the seismic developments in Manhattan forcing fence-sitters to defend him or, in some cases, come out and endorse him.
Citing the criminal case, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) announced her endorsement of Trump for president on Monday night. Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), running for Senate in Indiana, did the same on Friday.
Several key Republicans explicitly argued the indictment would significantly boost his bid for the White House in 2024.
Trump endorser Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) was just one of several members of House GOP leadership to tweet her support for Trump on Tuesday, though she was characteristically swaggering in her response.
Claiming Trump “continues to skyrocket in the polls,” Stefanik boasted in a statement that the ex-president “will defeat this latest witch-hunt, defeat Joe Biden, and will be sworn in as President of the United States of America in January 2025.”
That bullishness extended even to Republicans who have not endorsed the former president’s third consecutive bid for the White House.
“For those who think this will harm President Trump’s chances at running for the White House in 2024, I have news for you: it won’t,” tweeted Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the influential bloc of House conservatives.
Democrats, generally, have a hard time seeing how the dark cloud of a criminal case could help Trump win a general election rematch with Biden in 2024—though it might help him prevail in a GOP primary.
The initial Republican response indicated how the party might at least attempt to make the case to a broader audience. Almost every official statement referenced crime levels in New York City and made the argument that Bragg was spending time prosecuting Trump while being lenient toward violent criminals. (Last year, Bragg said his office would not prosecute some misdemeanors related to marijuana sale, public transit fare evasions, and others, drawing criticism from some in law enforcement.)
Given that Republicans effectively leveraged public concern over crime to win elections in 2022, especially in New York, it’s unsurprising that so many sought to accuse Bragg of a justice system double-standard.
But Republicans may prove more prone to the gravitational pull of an argument that has limited appeal outside the party base: that the country’s justice system is arrayed against Trump and, therefore, his supporters, when it should be focused on their enemies.
“Hunter Biden is free. Hillary Clinton is free,” tweeted Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), a member of House GOP leadership. “The Left’s weaponization of our criminal justice system for their own benefit is truly un-American. The extreme left has changed all the rules—now we must play by them.”
Even for prominent figures like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), not quite a diehard Trump ally, the indictment was framed as a crossing-the-Rubicon-level escalation in a national partisan power struggle.
In a grave, direct-to-camera video, Rubio argued Bragg’s move would “permanently change politics in America forever.”
“After today, every prosecutor in America who wants to make a name for themselves is going to have permission to basically go after someone in the other party,” Rubio warned. “We are going to regret this day for a very, very long time.”
