Republican senators are divided on whether former President Donald Trump should be the party’s 2024 presidential nominee after a New York jury found him liable for battery and defamation in a civil trial.
The case stemmed from allegations Trump raped the writer E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store nearly 30 years ago.
JURY ORDERS TRUMP TO PAY $5M IN DAMAGES TO CARROLL FOR BATTERY AND DEFAMATION
While the former president has denied wrongdoing in these matters, some Republican senators said they’d prefer to support another candidate in the 2024 race.
“I have a difficult time doing so,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) when asked by reporters if he’d support Trump after he was found liable for battery and defamation. “I’m looking at other candidates.”
Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate who has openly feuded with the former president, admitted the verdict may not make a dent with his base but emphasized the growing number of legal problems could pose a risk to his 2024 bid to regain the White House.
“I do think there’s a cumulative effect, just the constant drama and chaos that always seems to surround him,” Thune told reporters on Tuesday. “But that doesn’t seem to impact his hardcore supporters. The question, I guess, is does it impact people in the middle who are going to decide a national election?”
The question of electability is also one Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) brought up.
“I don’t think he can get elected,” Cornyn told reporters on Tuesday. “You can’t win a general election with just your base.”
Following a two-week trial, jurors arrived at their verdict after 2 ½ hours of deliberating, awarding Carroll $5 million in damages. The jury didn’t find Trump committed rape but found it more likely than not that he sexually abused Carroll in a dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s and that he defamed Carroll in comments he made, denying her allegations.
The verdict delivered on Tuesday is the latest blow for Trump as he seeks the 2024 Republican presidential nomination while facing a growing number of legal headaches. In a different case in New York, he’s facing criminal charges connected to the payment of hush money to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election and other investigations probing his involvement with Georgia election officials after the 2020 election, his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection and how he handled classified documents at his private residence at Mar-a-Lago.
Nearly a dozen Republicans senators have already endorsed Trump’s 2024 bid, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT). The latest legal action has Trump’s supporters digging in, questioning the fairness of the legal process in what they’re calling a “liberal stronghold” in New York.
“I think the New York Legal system is off the rails when it comes to Donald Trump,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has endorsed his run.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) dismissed the verdict, saying it was only “civil action.” The Missouri senator stopped short of endorsing his run but said he’d be surprised if Trump did not become the Republican nominee.
“I think he’ll be the nominee. I’d be very surprised if he wasn’t,” Hawley told reporters on Tuesday. “I think the general election is going to be an interesting affair because we are going to have whatever the situation ends up being here. I mean, the former president will appeal, so wherever we’re at with this by that point.”
Hawley isn’t alone. Many Senate Republicans have said publicly and privately that Trump is consolidating his support within the GOP and looks likely to become the nominee in 2024 despite looming legal problems. The former president has doubled his lead in recent polling over rival Ron DeSantis, Florida’s GOP governor, since Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted him in late March.
While some Republicans like Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), one of the most prominent critics of the 45th president within the GOP, voiced their skepticism with the earlier Trump indictment, the Utah senator finds this most recent verdict more troubling.
“The jury of Donald Trump’s peers found him guilty of sexual assault. I hope the jury of the American people conclude as well that he should not be the next nominee for the Republican Party or the president,” Romney said.
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Thune acknowledged the divisions within the conference, with some members deciding to continue to stand by Trump through all matters of adversity, but doubted it would have an impact on the Senate’s work.
“I think most senators in the end are going to do what they think is right for them and the constituency they represent,” Thune said, “We’re going to continue to do our work. The campaigns at some point will get more fully formed, and I assume there will be other candidates out there. In the meantime, we’ll just try and keep our heads down and do the stuff we are supposed to do.”
