Just two weeks ago, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy found Donald Trump guilty in the deadly attack on the United States Capitol. On Thursday he was seeking his political support.
A private meeting between the two men at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort noted a noticeable change in the former president’s stature among elected Republicans. Immediately after the uprising he inspired Trump, it seemed very unlikely that he would enjoy any kind of councilor in his post-presidency.
But after an initial wave of condemnation, Republicans seem to be warming up to Trump, fully aware that his supporters are about to punish anyone who shows disloyalty. With that in mind, party leaders are working to keep Trump on the sidelines as they focus on reclaiming the House and Senate in 2022.
“United and ready to win the 22nd,” McCarthy tweeted after their meeting. Both he and Trump issued statements setting out their commitment to work together to help Republicans regain control of the House and Senate in 2022.
The realignment with Trump comes when those who have crossed him continue to feel the burn. Trump ally Matt Gaetz in R-Florida spent the day in Wyoming trying to overthrow Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, who voted for Trump’s ouster. Amid the backlash, Senate Republicans have made it clear this week that they have no intention of condemning Trump.
As Trump tries to exert influence, he is undeniably diminished.
Before urging his followers to storm the Capitol, Trump was expected to spend his post-presidency happily resolving scores with Republican rivals, launching a Twitter-powered retreat of his successor and ruminating on running again for a second term. Now, he is largely isolated and silenced by social media platforms as President Joe Biden tries to dismantle his executive order by executive order..
He has not been seen in public since he disappeared behind the well-kept fences of Mar-a-Lago last Wednesday, half an hour before his presidency ended. He has spent his days consulting with assistants and defense attorneys as he prepares for his historic second trial.
Now things are very different. Last time, Trump had an army of advocates that included a team of Washington lawyers, a presidential communications store, a taxpayer-funded White House law firm, and the firm support of major Republicans, including the Republican National Committee.
This time, Trump continues to struggle to assemble a legal team, with the trial less than two weeks away.
“I think it has a major disadvantage,” said criminal defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was part of Trump’s legal team in 2020 but is among the long list of lawyers who are part of it. .
Yet even the impeachment trial, once seen as an opportunity for Senate Republicans to purge Trump from the party by preventing him from ever running for office, is now used as a rallying cry to rally. the party against the Democrats. Instead of debating whether he is guilty of “deliberately inciting violence against the U.S. government,” Republicans have attacked the process, arguing that it is unconstitutional to try a president who has already left the White House.
“At a time when our country needs to meet, Democrats in Congress are redoing the same strategy they used for the past four years: a scope of political motivation that will only divide us more,” the committee chairwoman said. National Republican Ronna McDaniel in a statement. this came after heated internal divisions over whether the group should publicly criticize Trump for inciting the riot.
In an interview, McDaniel declined to criticize the five Republican senators who voted this week to move forward with the trial. But he said “it’s more important to look at the 45 who said this is ridiculous.”
Aside from the trial, Trump has gradually begun to return to public conversation, firing press releases from the political committee he created before leaving the White House.
“She is OK. He has a legal team that he tries to organize and he just has to keep doing what he’s doing, ”said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close ally of Congress who has been helping Trump defend a legal team after numerous companies opted for.
“I think there’s an adjustment,” said Matt Schlapp, president of the American Conservative Union and another Trump ally.
Trump adviser Jason Miller insisted it was “too early” to debate the president’s impeachment strategy and the post-presidential political operation that is expected to include former White House political director Brian Jack and former Trump campaign chief Bill Stepien.
“We’ve had discussions about where we want to get involved in the midterms of 2022 and how we help Republicans get the Senate and House back,” Miller said, but Trump has yet to decide whether to run in the primary races. the Republicans who voted to accuse him.
After those members faced an intense backlash from Trump supporters, Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to try to dismiss his second impeachment trial.
“I think it’s pretty clear that Republican voters are strongly opposed to removal and Republicans who vote for removal do so at their own risk,” Miller said.
Despite the Capitol riot, polls show Trump continues to be very popular with Republican voters, many of whom are now considered more closely aligned with him than the party.
“It’s not so much Trump trying to embrace. It’s the basis of Trump trying to embrace, “said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist.” I think Trump’s departure left a huge gap. It was the only thing that united Republicans more than anything. I mean that “The Republican Party became the Trump Party for four years. And without him leading it, there’s an obvious power vacuum, and I think you see it playing in Congress now.”
The question is whether Trump’s influence will last. The internal divisions his team fosters could ultimately undermine the party’s quest to regain Congress. And it’s unclear if he can transfer his personal popularity to other candidates when he’s not at the polls. Republicans lost control of the House in 2018 and resigned from the Senate this month despite a last-minute appeal from Trump.
Graham, who said just this month that he has ended Trump – “All I can say is count me. Enough is enough. “- has since stressed the importance of keeping the party together.
“I want to make sure the Republican party can grow and come back, and we will need Trump and Trump needs us,” he told reporters.
As for Republicans voting to condemn Trump, “I guess it depends on what state you’re in and what stage of your career you’re in,” he quipped.
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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report.