Republicans know Trump indictment dooms him in the general election: CNN analyst
Former President Donald Trump is expected to continue with his 2024 campaign for president despite being indicted in the Stormy Daniels investigation — and he and his allies are boasting that the prosecution, which they characterize as a political hit job, will backfire and help him gain support among voters.
But according to CNN political analyst Gloria Borger on Thursday, Republican strategists privately believe just the opposite.
"I'm anxious to get your thoughts that Trump has already fundraising on the basis of this criminal charge, this indictment," said anchor Wolf Blitzer.
"That did not take long, right?" said political analyst David Chalian. "And I don't think this will surprise anyone. But he blasted out a fundraising appeal with the New York Times headline of the indictment on it, saying that this is a 'dark day for the country' and asking people to donate to the cause to fight back again."
"This is part of the political playbook that they have written and been sort of previewing for these last couple of weeks," continued Chalian. "We were also talking about how other Republicans would be reacting, and by far most Republicans are reading from the script that Trump has written here, going after Alvin Bragg, calling this a political prosecution, and it's interesting to note one of his potential rivals in the race, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, put out a statement and he called this a 'dark day for America when a former president is indicted on criminal charges.' He went on to say that 'the presumption of innocence follows Mr. Trump. But that 'Trump should not be the next president, but that should be decided by voters and not in a court.' So here was somebody, one of his potential rivals, who is choosing not to come in and join in the attack on Bragg and the attack on the prosecution."
"And Wolf, if I could just piggyback on that for a moment, I've been texting with some Republican strategists who want to remain anonymous at this point," said Borger. "But they are saying that what we're hearing from congressmen, etcetera, which one said to me, 'You shouldn't believe them because they all know that this is bad for Trump. It could harden his core supporters. But that's not enough to ever win again.' And he said, you know, he lost people from 2016 to 2020, and getting indicted for hush money is not going to bring back independent voters."
"So when Republicans start thinking about beyond the primary say he could be the nominee, they have to start thinking about electability," Borger continued. "And we've seen that seep into the conversation more and more and more as Republican voters start thinking about this, and this does play into the electability question. That's what Asa Hutchinson is really talking about. That's what Chris Christie was talking about. More directly, I think, but I think that Trump people have to be thinking about that as well."
Watch the segment below or at this link.
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