Conservative Rich Lowry has written a despairing new column in Politico lamenting that Republican voters seem to love former President Donald Trump the more he gets hit with criminal charges.
Lowry argues that this dynamic was on full display during Trump's interview with Fox News' Bret Baier in which he "he talked about having boxes with his clothes mixed in with classified documents, maintained he didn’t have time to comply with federal demands for the return of documents, and stated baldly, once again, that he won the 2020 election."
While many analysts thought that Trump incriminated himself during this interview, Lowry argues that the interview reminded the Republican base of what they loved about Trump.
However, he also warned that swing voters see Trump in an entirely different light and that the interview reinforced everything they tell pollsters they cannot stand about him.
Lowry also thinks that Trump has painted himself into such a corner that there is no conceivable way that he can make a "pivot" to appeal to swing voters in a general election.
"What adjustments can Trump make?" he writes. "He can’t get un-indicted for the general election, or jettison his claims about the 2020 election, or reverse all the water that passed under the bridge since 2015. He’s not going to become more polite or give up ALL CAPS TRUTH SOCIAL POSTS."
Lowry concludes by saying Trump could still win a general election due to President Joe Biden's own low approval ratings, but he thinks that picking Trump as their nominee again will make winning vastly more difficult than would otherwise have been the case.