Republican Party tests narrative for 2024 and avoids clashes with Trump

As former President Donald Trump heads to Texas on Saturday for his first major campaign rally, the handbrake remains on for most of his potential rivals in the 2024 election race.

Trump arrives in the Texas town of Waco just a week after he predicted his own bribery-related arrest in 2016.

In the days that followed, anticipation grew over a potential indictment by a Manhattan grand jury, with Trump speaking early on Friday of “potential death and destruction” if convicted, although no action was taken on that matter. week.

This latest ex-president drama is playing out during an unstable period for the rest of the 2024 presidential hopefuls in the GOP, who are mostly frozen as candidates travel the country to test their messages while trying to avoid clashes with Trump.

However, the former president operates according to his own agenda and, along with his allies, used his own indictment announcement to test the loyalty of his fellow Republicans.

“We all need to take a stand against President Trump’s political persecution,” Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert tweeted over the weekend. “This is not the time for silence.”

What Trump and his supporters noticed was a range of opponents rushing to his defense — yet another sign that the former president’s influence in the Republican Party remains stable.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who once heavily criticized Trump for his role in the January 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol, aligned himself with the then-ally almost immediately after Trump’s prediction last week.

“The fact that the Manhattan District Attorney thinks prosecuting President Trump is his highest priority, I think, says everything you need to know about the radical left in this country,” Pence said in an interview with ABC News last Sunday. . “It looks like a politically charged conviction.”

Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, remains the only other candidate with an established national profile to formally enter the race.

She also supported Trump after he disclosed his expected arrest, saying the possible case against him was “more about revenge than justice”.

Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has projected a warrior persona in the run-up to his own expected campaign, is still months away from an announcement. While he struck a sharper, more sarcastic tone when discussing Trump’s legal troubles this week, he has faced fallout from his own confused and conflicted comments about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, another potential candidate, dodged questions about Trump and whether he was concerned about the behavior underlying the bribery case. Instead, he turned his ire on reporters and President Joe Biden.

“You know, one of the things I would say is that red on red violence [de Republicanos contra Republicanos], so to speak, it’s something the mass media likes,” Scott said on Fox New Thursday. “The road to socialism leads through a divided Republican Party. One thing we must do is keep our focus on the real problem: President Biden.”

Turning your back on DeSantis

Further complicating DeSantis’ attempt to cut Trump’s support while energizing his own conservative base, his other would-be rivals — led by Haley and Pence — are increasingly framing him as a carbon copy of the former president.

The main difference: They can go after DeSantis without fear of retribution from Trump or his supporters.

Pence took aim at DeSantis over the Florida governor’s home state war with Disney, which he targeted after the company pushed back against state GOP legislation banning certain instructions about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom, dubbed by critics of the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The former vice president argued that DeSantis’ revocation of Disney’s special tax status went too far and that such interventions violated his principles as a “limited government republican.”

Both Pence and Haley also insisted that “entitlements reform,” in the form of cutting senior benefits in an effort to combat what they described as a funding crisis, would be on the table if elected. That stance separates them from Trump and DeSantis – at least rhetorically – who have pledged not to touch popular programs like Medicare and Social Security.

For his part, DeSantis ignored prodding from Republicans and instead tried to land subtle jabs at Trump.

Asked about rumors of Trump’s upcoming indictment, DeSantis said on Monday he “has no interest in being involved in some kind of circus manufactured by a Soros,” a reference to Democrat Alvin Bragg and billionaire liberal donor George Soros.

But he maintained a criticism that angered Trump and his top aides.

“I don’t know what it means to pay a porn star to ensure silence about some sort of alleged affair,” DeSantis said to laughs from some in the press. “I just, I can’t talk about it.”

Trump promptly responded by posting a series of personal attacks against DeSantis on social media.

Crossfire over Ukraine

The back-and-forth with Trump, which continued after DeSantis landed a few more shots during an interview with Piers Morgan, was arguably less damaging to the Florida governor than his continued rants in Ukraine.

After receiving a barrage of criticism from prominent Republicans for initially describing Russia’s war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” in a statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, DeSantis subsequently insisted to Morgan that he was addressing only one part more old. of the conflict was concentrated in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

“It’s a tough fight,” DeSantis said of the region, “and that’s what I was referring to. And so it’s not that I thought Russia had a right to this (land), I could have made that clearer.”

On Thursday, however, DeSantis returned to a more populist stance, saying in an interview with Newsmax that he cares “more about protecting our own border in the United States than the Russia-Ukraine border”.

The back-and-forth about Ukraine drew censures from Pence and Haley, along with foreign policy hawks like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, who at various times mocked or belittled DeSantis’ comments.

“When the United States supports Ukraine in its fight against Putin, we follow the Reagan doctrine and support those who fight our enemies behind their backs so we don’t have to fight them ourselves,” Pence said in a statement. “There is no room for Putin’s forgiveness in the Republican Party.”

The widespread backlash highlighted DeSantis’ uniquely rocky path to the nomination. When he caved in to Trump’s position in his opening remarks, the party establishment and anti-Trump conservatives rushed to condemn him.

But with DeSantis largely sharing a voter base with the former president, establishing a clear opposition to Trump would be politically unsustainable.

It’s a challenge he will need to face — and resolve — as the race heats up and the wait for candidates and action on Trump’s legal cases draws to a close.