GOP RIVALS COME TO TRUMP’S DEFENSE
Several leaders say an indictment may help his campaign
Former Vice President Mike Pence recently proclaimed that “history will hold Donald Trump accountable” for trying to overturn the 2020 election results and prompting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
On Sunday, however, he was one of several potential rivals or candidates seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination who rushed to Trump’s defense, a day after the ex-president called for protests in the wake of what he said was his imminent arrest over a criminal investigation in Manhattan.
“I think it just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country. It just feels like a politically charged prosecution here,” Pence said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
Pence, like several other Republicans preparing to challenge Trump for the presidential nomination or who are aligned with Trump’s rivals, jumped into the unlikely position of defending the party leader they hope to defeat.
The positioning is another sign of how much Trump has helped change political norms; previous candidates may have welcomed inquiries that could have disqualified their political rivals.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been examining a $130,000 payment Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, said he made right before the 2016
election to Stephanie Clifford — an adult-film star who goes by the name Stormy Daniels — to ensure her silence about her purported affair with Trump. Trump has denied the affair but has admitted he reimbursed Cohen for the payment to Daniels, “to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her.”
Trump surprised his advisers Saturday morning by posting an all-caps message on his Truth Social platform claiming that he expected to
be arrested Tuesday in that investigation.
Several leaders in the GOP suggested that an indictment would actually help, rather than hurt, Trump’s campaign to win back the White House.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who is considering entering the race and who has said the party is “moving on” from Trump, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the pending charges against Trump are “building a lot of sympathy
for the former president.”
Sununu said he met with people earlier Sunday, “none of them were big Trump supporters, but they all said they felt like he was being attacked.”
Sununu also downplayed the substance of the allegations against Trump. “There are other issues that really take precedent in terms of where this country needs to go,” Sununu said.
Vivek Ramaswamy sought to bolster his announced bid for the 2024 Republican
nomination by denouncing the case against Trump. He described it as “the ruling party of this country using police power to arrest its political opposition.”
Ramaswamy, regarded as a long-shot candidate, also demanded others join him in this opposition, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who jumped into the race last month. Haley’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who hasn’t formally entered the 2024 race but is considered Trump’s biggest rival among Republicans, did not make any comments over the weekend about the hush-money case.
On Sunday afternoon, Trump again posted on Truth Social, asserting: “There was no crime, period.”
He also labeled the investigation “Prosecutorial Misconduct and Interference with an Election.”
Many of the GOP leaders on the Sunday shows didn’t express any qualms about Trump’s earlier calls for “PROTEST” and to “TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” in his postings.
When Pence was asked by ABC’s Jonathan Karl about the possibility of new violence from Trump’s calls for protests, he demurred, saying that “the American people have a constitutional right to peaceably assemble.” Pence declined to comment on the merits of the case related to the hushmoney payments.
The New York Police Department has been having internal meetings, including one Sunday, to discuss possibilities for handling protests around any potential Trump court appearance.
A larger in-person conversation is expected early this week with representatives from the NYPD and other agencies that would be involved in security, including the District Attorney’s Office, Secret Service, New York state court officers and state court judges, people with knowledge of the effort have said.