GOP 2024 Hopefuls Won’t Answer the World’s Easiest Question:
Should Trump drop out of the race now that he’s indicted?
The stench of potential legal trouble for former President Donald Trump has been lingering in the air like the scent of a Snack Pack on Ron DeSantis’ plane. Now, the other shoe has dropped. (An Ivanka Trump heel or a DeSantis heeled boot?!).
As we glide through this sea of uncertainty, Republicans who are running for president in 2024 have to answer what is, perhaps, the easiest question of all time: Should Trump drop out of the race now that he’s indicted?
To be clear, the answer is, yes. But you wouldn’t know it from the 2024 field. Despite being “tough on crime,” Republicans running for president in 2024 seem to have a lot of trouble standing up to a potential criminal. And while it has been done before, Trump’s Republican opponents seem to be OK with the fact that he could be running for president from prison.
While DeSantis got attention for going after Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels, he still is trying to follow Trump’s orders and discredit the investigation and the investigator. At a press conference, DeSantis repeated an antisemitic trope demonizing the Manhattan District Attorney at the center of this case, decrying the “Soros-funded prosecutor” for trying to “weaponize [his] office to impose a political agenda on society.”
DeSantis is not alone in going after the DA. Former Vice President Mike Pence — you know, the one who Trump seemed to support his followers murdering — also went after the “politically charged prosecution.”
Others sought to play it off like it was no big deal that the former president could be going to prison. Chris Christie told a radio host last week that he “wouldn’t say that Donald Trump has to get out of the race because he’s indicted.” Then there’s New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who said it was a question of “why” the DA was pursuing this investigation at this moment, dismissing the incident as “something seven years ago.”
UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — who has already struggled to differentiate between herself and the former president — and Sen. Tim Scott have displayed profiles in courage by saying … absolutely nothing on the issue.
The only potential 2024 candidate to say that Trump should not run if he is indicted is former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is currently polling at 0%.
In case any of the folks named need a refresher on Trump’s legal and investigative woes (there are plenty!), you can check out our running page on Trump Research Book, our publicly available source of everything we’ve got on Trump.
