Trump legal scandals won’t hurt him with Republicans — but he does have one glaring weakness

The widening legal scandals engulfing Donald Trump aren't likely to hurt him with the Republican base, but GOP strategists do see one vulnerability.

New York's attorney general Letitia James filed a $250 million fraud lawsuit against the Trump Organization, and the former president is under criminal investigation for taking top-secret government documents and for instigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, but Republicans largely don't see those allegations as political negatives, reported Politico.

“The more Trump is attacked, the higher he climbs among Republicans,” said GOP pollster Frank Luntz. “He knows how to play the victim card perfectly.”

GOP sources suggested that James' lawsuit was intended to ensure Trump's nomination, which Democrats presumably would see as a political win for their 2024 chances, but the scandals could rally Republican voters around the twice-impeached ex-president.

IN OTHER NEWS: Trump acknowledges past business interactions with the mob in new book

“The more the Democrats keep going after him, the better it is,” said one GOP strategist who works for hardline congressional candidates. "The more you tell [voters] he’s a piece of sh*t, deplorable, everything that’s wrong with America, the more you’re pushing that guy into the MAGA camp. Politics is tribal.”

However, GOP strategists pointed out a vulnerability that Trump challengers, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, might use to attack the former president.

“I don’t think you go after him on the scandals -- everyone is aware of those," said another Republican strategist. "All you do is make enemies out of the hard core members of the base. The only way to run against him is to say he’s a loser. You have to basically say, I love everything you did. I loved the policy. I think you’re great to shake up the country. But you lost the Congress, Senate, the White House – and you did that in four years – that’s a record.”

That's why the midterm elections, where Trump has endorsed a number of struggling candidates, could help decide whether he's the 2024 nominee.

“I think we’re going to have to see how this election comes out,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado Republican Party chair and veteran GOP strategist. “Because if we lose a lot of Senate races, or House races for that matter, that we should have won, and that can be traced back to the emergence of Trump once again as such a dominant figure in this midterm election campaign, I think that will probably hurt him long term.”

GOP strategist John Thomas, who had been organizing a DeSantis PAC until the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, agreed.

“Trump’s going to be the nominee if he wants it," Thomas said, "unless we get blown out in the midterms and a lot of Trump’s candidates lose.”