The GOP Is In Disarray. And Not Just Over Trump.

Photo: Alex Wong / Getty Images

In many ways, Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday before a federal magistrate in Florida was predictably uneventful. With cameras and recording devices disallowed inside the courtroom, per federal custom, there was little of the media frenzy we witnessed in New York City at his first indictment. And only a small number of Trump faithfuls, numbering in the hundreds, answered the ex-president’s call to assemble on his behalf. Police had been expecting somewhere between 5,000 and 50,000 people. The few who showed up shared the day with anti-Trump protestors and press from around the world, and the dismal turnout spoke volumes about Trump’s much-feared ability to summon the mob to his aid.

Despite the notable lack of drama and crowds outside the courthouse, it was hard to dismiss the historic nature of the day. For the first time in our nation’s history, a former president faced federal charges. Trump was arrested, fingerprinted, and was arraigned on charges that could put him away for the rest of his life.

The whole event was over quickly, but Trump, per usual, turned the rest of the day into a campaign event. He met with supporters at a Cuban eatery in Miami, where he even bowed his head and prayed with two pastors and a rabbi. (God, per usual allowing humankind to make its own horrific mistakes, failed to strike them down with lightning.)

Outside of this circus, a growing rift manifested among GOP leaders over Trump’s criminal case. And tensions within the GOP between the Trumpy far-right “Freedom Caucus” and moderates who want their old party back spilled over into outright acrimony, cursing and threats behind closed doors at a House GOP caucus meeting. 

Let’s take a closer look at how the GOP is falling into deeper disarray over Trump and disparate policy goals. With Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) increasingly in danger of losing control of the House, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) staying awkwardly silent over pretty much everything, and ex-president Donald Trump remaining the de facto leader of a party he is now dragging through two criminal cases and several pending civil ones, it’s looking like the wheels are coming loose on a bus that no one sane is driving but many continue to get tossed under.

Cracks in the wall

For some time it seemed that Trump had built at least one wall: the GOP’s denial of his many crimes. But as the seriousness of the indictment began to sink in, cracks in that wall began to show, then widen, even while others in the party scrambled to shore it up.

The GOP appeared deeply split over how to react to Trump’s growing legal peril. Former Vice President Mike Pence came out with his most forceful criticism yet of the ex-president. “Having read the indictment, these are very serious allegations. And I can’t defend what is alleged,” Pence said to The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “But the President is entitled to his day in court, he’s entitled to bring a defense, and I want to reserve judgment until he has the opportunity to respond.”

So far, that response has comprised recycled claims that he was fully entitled to take the documents with him, that it’s a political “witch hunt,” and that he hadn’t had time to go through all his boxes—a claim disputed by the indictment, which alleges Trump ordered boxes of documents moved in and out of storage and tried very hard to prevent even his own lawyers from turning over key national security-related documents.

Trump’s biggest antagonist within the party continues to be his former pal Chris Christie, who once helped him prepare for the debates against Biden but also (checks notes) nearly died after Trump allegedly infected him with Covid. At a CNN “Town Hall” event on Tuesday evening, Christie laid into the 45th president. “Oh, it’s the Democrats’ fault, it's DOJ’s fault, it’s this person’s fault, it’s the media’s fault. How about, ‘It’s his?’ He hasn’t won a damn thing since 2016. Three time loser. 2018 we lost the House, 2020 we lost the White House, we lost the United States Senate a couple weeks later in 2021, and in 2022 we lost 2 more governorships, another Senate seat and barely took the House of Representatives... Loser, loser, loser.”

Within the House GOP, strong condemnation came from Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a “moderate” swing district representative affiliated with the Problem Solvers caucus. “As a retired brigadier general who worked with classified materials my entire career, I am shocked at the alleged callousness of how these documents were handled,” Bacon said in a statement. “They should not have been stored at his home and should have been completely handed over when the government requested.”

Trump’s former Attorney General, Bill Barr, hardly a moderate voice, gave his own frank assessment. “It’s a very detailed indictment, and it is very, very damning. This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous...He’s not a victim here. He was totally wrong.”

Nikki Haley, whose views on everything seem to change as soon as a light red breeze blows, signaled a shift in tone over her old boss, even while hedging her bet in a hypothetical. “If this indictment is true...President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security.... This puts all of our military men and women in danger.” Echoing this shift, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) called Trump’s indictment a “serious case with serious allegations.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, worried about alienating the MAGA base, has called the indictment a “weaponization of law enforcement,” but the indictment seems to be hurting his campaign and helping Trump’s more than anything. One poll by Morning Consult that came out after the indictment showed Trump posting his biggest national lead yet—40 points—over DeSantis for the nomination, with Trump winning 59 percent versus DeSantis’s 19 percent. Everyone else was in the single digits.

The inevitability of Trump as the GOP nominee may explain why others appear to be running for vice president, hoping to win the approval of the leading man. Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy glowed at the prospect of wielding the power of the Oval Office on Trump’s behalf. “This is my commitment:… if I'm elected the next U.S. President, to pardon Donald J. Trump for these offenses in this federal case.” He also called on all the other candidates to make the same pledge.

Not so fast, said traditional conservative Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas. “I think anyone provides a disservice to our justice system and our rule of law if they diminish the seriousness of these charges...We need to be straightforward about this and not play political games.”

It’s certainly going to be an interesting first GOP presidential primary debate.

Meanwhile, chaos in the GOP-controlled House

The Trump-aligned “Freedom Caucus” in the House has been staging a mutiny against Speaker McCarthy, which began after it blocked normal, routine rules bills from proceeding in the chamber, effectively grinding House business to a halt. Congress, with nothing to do and no way to do it, left early last week for an extended weekend.

On Tuesday, talks that were supposed to smooth things over exploded into chaos and shouting behind closed doors in a “fiery” conference meeting. The “moderates” (and I use that term only relatively here) appear to have finally found their spine and began to push back against the 11 far-right members who have hijacked the bus and slammed on the brakes. 

Those far-right members were furious that their demands for deep spending cuts were not a part of the deal brokered between the White House and Speaker McCarthy, which wound up passing the House with more Democratic votes than Republican. But now the House GOP moderates have begun to have had enough.

Freshman Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) reportedly was “screaming at the mics” about the shutdown on the chamber floor, resorting to “dropping multiple F bombs” and telling the room “he’s introducing bills to save lives and it’s not s**t that gets on Fox News.” 

Another member, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) was angry that a regulatory bill he has long championed was held up by the mutiny on the floor, according to Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), who admitted that the room had gotten “a little spicy.” About Lawler, Burchett said, “He couldn’t get the bill presented, so he was cussing. And that’s understandable.”

In the end, the mutineers backed down, for now. But they only did so after McCarthy agreed to renegotiate a “power sharing” agreement with the rebels, according to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). This characterization was denied by other members, including McCarthy. 

It now appears the far-right intends to submit low-ball appropriations bills in violation of the spirit of the debt ceiling and budget agreement that their own leader negotiated with Joe Biden. They are claiming that the spending caps agreed to were only ceilings, not floors, for where appropriations would wind up, raising the possibility of a government shutdown later this year as things stall out. That will look particularly bad for the Republicans should they openly renege on the spirit if not the letter of the deal and propose bills that will go nowhere in the Senate and do not reflect the understanding of the parties.

Should this happen, Democratic leaders will rightly question whether it makes any sense to deal with McCarthy at all if he cannot keep his word because his own caucus undermines him at every turn. And it will be increasingly clear to the middle of the country which party is causing the shutdown and why.

Some considerations

With its leadership split over the Trump indictments, which may be only the first of more to come, and the far-right causing paralysis and dysfunction every step of the way now for Speaker McCarthy, the GOP faces the prospect of electoral annihilation in 2024 unless it can pull itself together.

Trump remains deeply unpopular and likely, based on the hard electoral math, to lose to Biden in the general election, given the way recent elections have gone in the critical battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia. His continuing legal perils may elevate him among the MAGA base, but they are leaving a strong distaste with independent voters and traditional conservative Republicans.

Meanwhile, Speaker McCarthy is either dead in the water or likely to be axed. He can’t seem to placate the right-wing extremists in his own party, and without their support, nothing can move forward. Centrist Republicans may soon grow weary of this dysfunction and admit that they must work, once again, with Democrats to get either an omnibus budget bill or the several appropriations bills through, under the spending caps already agreed to. If that happens, it will once again appear as though Democrats must rescue the country from disaster.

Republicans definitely do not want “Democrats to the rescue!” to become a recurring theme before the American electorate, but that’s how things are now shaping up.