Why GOP Contenders Didn’t Rush to Defend Trump on His Latest Indictment News

Time after time, Donald Trump’s opponents for the Republican nomination have raced to his side when he faced legal troubles.

When a Manhattan prosecutor resurrected Trump’s hush money payments to a pornstar to file 34 low-level felonies, several candidates derided it as a partisan attack by an unpopular district attorney. 

When federal prosecutors charged him with obstructing efforts to retrieve classified documents, they decried “weaponization” of the Justice Department.

But on Tuesday, when Trump revealed he was facing indictment related to the Jan. 6 riots and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his GOP opponents held back. 

“I don't think it serves us good to have a presidential election focused on what happened four years ago in January, so I want to focus on looking forward,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said on CNN Tuesday shortly after Trump announced he was the target of the investigation. A few hours later during a campaign stop in South Carolina, DeSantis was similarly evasive. 

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, appearing on Fox News, repeated her campaign mantra that Republican voters are tired of the drama around Trump. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson repeated his previous comments that Trump’s efforts to refuse to leave office after losing in 2020 disqualified him from the race. 

Even the most pugnacious Trump opponent — former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who challenged Trump to a fight — was remarkably quiet about Trump’s possible indictment for the January 6th attack.

The key difference with this particular case is that Jan. 6 unfolded for the world to see, a dangerous and embarrassing moment for the U.S. democracy when the Capitol was ransacked by Trump supporters. Some GOP presidential contenders clearly don’t want to be associated with the Capitol riot and Trump’s actions that day.

The lone top-tier contender to rush to Trump’s defense Tuesday was former pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy, who tweeted that it was “un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its chief political rivals.” 

In the campaigns of Trump’s opponents, there is a growing belief that the cumulative weight of Trump’s stunning number of criminal cases will finally crater his support in the field – even if there’s no evidence of that yet in the polls.

Republicans working for other candidates in the field said there’s no benefit for them in taking Trump’s bait and backing him on this case — special counsel Jack Smith will reveal the details of Trump’s most serious criminal charges in due time, or he may not. 

The GOP field for now appears to be waiting for the Aug. 23 Republican presidential debate to let loose on Trump.

“The debate is the kickoff,” said one Republican supporting an opposing candidate. 

The first Republican debate will include some of Trump’s most ardent opponents on stage, including DeSantis and Christie. Trump has teased that he may not show up and may attempt to stage a competing event like he did for one of the 2016 debates. 

But few Republicans believe Trump will give up the chance to control the spotlight, even with the danger of facing opponents peppering him on live television about his wildest efforts to hold onto power after losing.

Why the cases are different

The first two criminal indictments against Trump were more easily dismissed by Republicans looking to curry favor with the populist base Trump cemented over the past eight years. 

The Manhattan case stemmed from an event dealing with the 2016 election and was hard to boil down into a few simple sentences. The case of Trump hiding hundreds of highly sensitive documents from federal investigators suffers from the fact it’s almost impossible to detail exactly what Trump was hiding — because the documents at the center of the case remain hidden from the public.

But America watched January 6th unfold on live television, glued to their computers, phones and TVs all while locked down during the pandemic.

Hundreds of Trump’s supporters have gone to jail for their attacks on Capitol Police since then, and many have blamed Trump’s lies claiming he actually won for putting them in jail. The militia leaders who helped organize the attack on the Capitol were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

And the House January 6th Committee spent weeks last summer airing what many called  “blockbuster” style Congressional hearings with damning testimony from Trump’s own family and closest advisers.

“I think that one is the most serious,” one Republican close to Trump told The Messenger Tuesday.