The former president is confident both of his acquittal and that he’ll come out of the trial with an iron grip on the GOP.
Three weeks ago may have been the nadir of Donald Trump’s political influence. A meager crowd of supporters gathered to send him off to Florida, he’d lost access to Twitter and the Senate’s most powerful Republican, Mitch McConnell, seemed fully prepared to ghost him out of the party.
Now, heading into what could have been an historic bipartisan rebuke, the former president and his team are confident both of his acquittal and that he’ll come out of the trial with his influence over the Republican party all but cemented.
Not even Trump’s closest allies can believe the turn in fortunes.
“He’s Teflon, right. It’s been a month since the Capitol riot and I would say, for the most part, the GOP has coalesced back behind him,” said a former Trump campaign official.
The confidence from Trump allies heading into the former president’s second impeachment trial — this time over the deadly riots by Trump supporters on Capitol Hill — may seem premature, given the lingering political and legal hurdles he still must confront. But it provides a road map of sorts for how they view his path ahead.
Already, Trump aides contend, the impeachment process has proved beneficial to the ex-president — exposing disloyalty within the party’s ranks and igniting grassroots backlash against Republicans who have attempted to nudge the GOP base away from Trump. Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse spent last week fending off constituent criticisms and censures from state party officials after he compared Trumpism to “a civic cancer for the nation.” And Trump’s allies believe the ex-president’s impending impeachment trial will further illuminate who the turncoats are.
“It’s going to help expose more bad apples that he can primary if any senators vote to convict,” added the former campaign official.
While ensconced at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Trump has remained in touch with political allies and advisers. But he has intentionally kept a low profile, something that will likely continue this week. A former aide suggested Trump try to demonstrate his indifference to it all by spending much of impeachment playing golf, “as a way of sort of saying, ‘Who cares?’”
Aides expect that to change once the trial wraps up though, with Trump gradually reemerging in public and turning his attention toward seeking revenge against Republicans who, he believes, crossed him after he left office.
The format in which he pursues retribution is less clear. The president is still considering what mediums he should use as he remains barred from Twitter and has lost influential media allies like former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, whose show was abruptly canceled last Friday.
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Even Trump and his team are surprised by how well he has emerged from the ashes of the Jan. 6 riot https://t.co/jlmD5BgZly
— POLITICO (@politico) February 9, 2021
Like kudzu, you’ve got to keep cutting it back and applying Roundup https://t.co/Aj5OGp7DtG
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) February 9, 2021
I expect if Trump is exonerated, he will be on the road, holding his virus spreading rallies and perhaps plotting something even more nefarious than his attempted coup.
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