How an annual retreat shows why House GOP can’t shake Trump: report

House Republicans are trying to forge a new path under their new majority, but Donald Trump's looming indictment appears to be complicating that endeavor, NBC News reports.

At an annual retreat this week in Florida in which House Republicans had planned to hold substantive conversations about policy and messaging, talk has turned to the beleaguered ex-president who expects to be arrested Tuesday and is calling on his legions of supporters to protest on his behalf, the report said.

It's a familiar scenario for Republican, who the NBC News reports says have returned to “the same pattern they found themselves in during the four-year Trump presidency.”

So instead of focusing on serious issues such as the banking crisis and geopolitical uncertainty, Republicans are being forced to turn their attention to the legal plight of the former president and 2024 GOP frontrunner.

IN OTHER NEWS: Trump ally Robert Costello reveals what he told the Manhattan grand jury

“It is what it is — hush money for a porn star. I mean, I couldn’t survive that,” Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-TX) told NBC News.

"It looks a little political, but I think we’re all exhausted from the drama of Trump.”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), among other pro-Trump House lawmakers, are discouraging protests and urging people not to resort to violence.

But most House Republicans in attendance are uniting behind the former president.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is among those voices, and the judiciary chairman has sent a letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg requesting the prosecutor testify before congress, the report said.

Jordan called the Trump probe “politically motivated” “during a news conference called “Delivering on our Commitment to America."

“DOJ wouldn’t take the case. The Federal district of New York didn’t take the case. [Former Manhattan DA] Cy Vance wouldn’t take the case. Bragg didn’t want to take the case, and then what changed? President Trump announces he’s running for president and shazam!” Jordan said during a press conference in which lawmakers had planned to address questions over border security.

“We don’t think President Trump broke the law at all, but what concerns me is what they’re going to do based on what’s been reported."