![]() ![]() Others imagine a coordinated donor revolt that sidelines Trump for good. Graham: A guide to the possible forthcoming indictments of Donald Trump “Donald will use the indictment to continue his fundraising grift,” Cohen told me.ĭavid A. ![]() The deep-state Democrats are at it again-the campaign emails write themselves. Michael Cohen, who served for years as Trump’s personal attorney and now hosts a podcast atoning for that sin titled Mea Culpa, grudgingly told me that his former boss would easily weaponize any criminal charges brought against him. But most of the people I talked with seemed resigned to the likelihood that an indictment would only boost him with the party’s base. He is currently the subject of multiple criminal investigations, and his detractors dream of an indictment that would derail his campaign. Some Republicans are clinging to the hope that Trump might finally be undone by his legal troubles. But I’ve heard from a lot of people who will go onstage and put on the red hat, and then give me a call the next day and say, ‘I can’t wait until this guy dies.’ And it’s like, Good Lord.” (Trump’s mother died at 88 and his father at 93, so this strategy isn’t exactly foolproof.) “I want to be clear: I’m not in that camp. “You have a lot of folks who are just wishing for mortal demise,” Meijer told me. Why risk alienating his supporters when nature will take its course sooner or later? Peter Meijer, a former Republican representative who left office this month, termed this strategy actuarial arbitrage. Their rationale was straightforward: The former president is 76 years old, overweight, appears to maintain the diet of a college freshman, and believes, contrary to all known science, that exercise is bad for you. Mark Leibovich: The most pathetic men in America In my conversations with Republicans, I heard repeatedly that the least disruptive path to getting rid of Trump, grim as it sounds, might be to wait for his expiration. In his recent book Thank You for Your Servitude, my colleague Mark Leibovich quoted a former Republican representative who bluntly summarized his party’s plan for dealing with Trump: “We’re just waiting for him to die.” As it turns out, this is not an uncommon sentiment. ![]() The scenarios Republicans find themselves fantasizing about range from the far-fetched to the morbid. “It’s like 2016 all over again, only more fatalistic.” “There is a desire for deus ex machina,” said one GOP consultant, who, like others I interviewed, requested anonymity to characterize private conversations taking place inside the party. ![]() And they would strongly prefer not to make it happen themselves. Faced with the prospect of another election cycle dominated by Trump and uncertain that he can actually be beaten in the primaries, many Republicans are quietly rooting for something to happen that will make him go away. This magical thinking pervaded my recent conversations with more than a dozen current and former elected GOP officials and party strategists. Maybe the situation will resolve itself naturally: He’s old, after all-how many years can he have left? Maybe he’ll flame out early in the primaries, or just get bored with politics and wander away. Maybe he’ll get indicted and his legal problems will overwhelm him. Aside from his most blinkered loyalists, virtually everyone in the party agrees: It’s time to move on from Trump.īut ask them how they plan to do that, and the discussion quickly veers into the realm of hopeful hypotheticals. He’s presided over three abysmal election cycles since he took office, he is more unstable than ever, and yet he returned to the campaign trail this past weekend, declaring that he is “angry” and determined to win the GOP presidential nomination again in 2024. Press them hard enough, and most Republican officials-even the ones with MAGA hats in their closets and Mar-a-Lago selfies in their Twitter avatar-will privately admit that Donald Trump has become a problem. ![]()
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