A Republican strategist warned that President Donald Trump's seeming impunity did not carry over into a scandal that's threatening to consume his presidency.
The U.S. Supreme Court's immunity ruling before he won re-election emboldened Trump, GOP strategist Maura Gillespie told "CNN This Morning," and she said that had set the tone from the start of his second term.
"The executive orders, Ithink, from the pardons to howit emboldened President Trump2.0 and the White House," Gillespie said. "Ithink you mentioned the Supreme Court ruling on immunity. Thatalso further emboldened him inways that I don't know thatwe're necessarily prepared for,because it really does feel asthough once that came down, hethought, 'I can do whatever Iwant and I cannot be stopped, and if they try to stop me,nothing will happen to me.'"
"Then he realized he had thepardon power, and he can pardoneveryone and anyone," Gillespie added, "and what Joe Biden did before he leftoffice, pardoning Hunter Bidenand for past and future, youknow, issues he may come upagainst. Trump saw that waslike, 'Great, I will do that formy world as well,' and so we'vealready seen him use the pardonpower to an extreme degree.Obviously, with the Jan. 6of Day One, but I do think thatreally set the tone, and thereare some things that I don'tknow we'll be able to claw backwith the immunity."
However, that impunity does not seem to cover the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which Gillespie said had caused a crisis of faith among the MAGA base.
"It feels like the biggest moment for MAGA, I think, in terms of creating an actual rift where MAGA voters and Trump loyalists were faced with the question, 'Was I being lied to for my vote or is the president hiding something from me?'" Gillespie said, "and that is a stark thing for people who have given their entire loyalty to him, who don't want to blame him for anything, who are constantly looking for somebody else to blame, and even in those first moments, they were looking at [Attorney General] Pam Bondi, 'Get her, get rid of her, Trump,' like she's hiding something, she's doing something. You know, they were trying to find some way not to blame Trump, and I think that has really created this first big rift that we've actually seen in MAGA world, and over the Epstein files."