Just over a week since the FBI’s search of former President Trump’s estate in Florida, his grip on the Republican Party hasn’t weakened — in fact, it seems to be growing stronger.
As new details emerge about why the search was conducted, including how federal officers suspected Trump violated the Espionage Act and other laws, the path to another GOP presidential nomination is becoming easier, our colleague Brett Samuels writes.
“On the Republican side, with the exception of never-Trumpers… virtually everybody else assumes the FBI is corrupt,” former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said. “If they keep this up, he won’t have a major opponent for the primary.”
Painting federal investigations as politically charged has been a part of Trump’s playbook to rile up voters before: He repeatedly called the Department of Justice’s probe into his campaign’s ties with Russia a “witch hunt,” leading some Republicans to think it will work again as a strategy.
The GOP has employed this sort of rhetoric throughout the midterms, framing the Jan. 6 House select committee as a partisan attack.
And Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) lost her reelection primary on Tuesday, ostracized from the party because of her role as vice chair on the Jan. 6 panel.
Our colleague Max Greenwood writes that her loss “dashed any lingering hope among Trump’s critics that the party’s rank-and-file voters might be ready to buck the former president and chart their own path forward.”
Despite the victories of several of Trump’s endorsed candidates during the Republican primaries, the real test will come when they face Democrats in November, especially in purple states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada.
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Pence is pushing back…
As some Republicans threaten law enforcement officials after the Mar-a-Lago search, it gives others an opportunity to differentiate themselves from Trump, including his former No. 2.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is not amused by the threats against the FBI, telling members of the GOP on Wednesday that “the Republican Party is the party of law and order.”
It’s another dig against Trump as both flirt with White House bids, after Pence called him out indirectly during a July speech for focusing on the 2020 presidential election instead of the future.
But Trump is playing both sides, saying on Monday he would work to help bring the “temperature” down to protect law enforcement officials in the wake of threats — while simultaneously repeating his attacks against them.
ICYMI: Some GOP members are worried about the message of being against the FBI as they campaign on being pro-law enforcement.
Will Cheney seek the White House in 2024?
Hours after Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) lost her House seat to Harriet Hageman, she’s already teasing a White House bid.
“That’s a decision that I’m going to make in the coming months,” Cheney said Wednesday. “But it is something that I am thinking about.”
The bigger question: Would she be able win the Republican presidential primary?
It would certainly be an uphill battle, considering she only won 29 percent of the House primary vote against Hageman and would likely be facing Trump-aligned candidates or even Trump himself.
But some see it as a logical step, our colleagues Julia Manchester and Mychael Schnell write, not in hopes to actually make it to the White House, but to make sure Trump doesn’t win again.
“It strikes me that if you’re wanting to talk to Republican audiences about what you think is an important point of view, what better way to do that and to do it in the presidential cycle,” GOP strategist Scott Jennings told our colleagues.
So what’s her next move? Even if she doesn’t run in 2024, Cheney is still going to be the chief Republican Trump critic. Keeping with her message that he is a threat to democracy, she is launching an organization to oppose Trump’s campaign if he decides to run, Politico reported Wednesday.
MUSK AND MCCARTHY IN WYOMING
As Cheney conceded the race to Hageman, GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) welcomed billionaire Elon Musk to his Republican retreat in Wyoming.
Why was Musk there? Our colleague Emily Brooks reports that Musk and McCarthy led a fireside chat with supporters. It comes a few months after Musk said he voted for a Republican for the first time in a Texas special election.
Musk and McCarthy have cozied up together before when Musk was seriously attempting to take over Twitter. But he’s not as close with Trump anymore it seems, after the former president called him a “bulls— artist” in July at an Alaska rally.
Why are Republicans keeping Musk close? The world’s richest man can be a cash cow, previously having donated to both Republican and Democrat campaigns. And he’s all the more likely now to involve himself in politics, casting himself as a savior of free speech in the past year.
How Fetterman is defining an ‘online’ campaign
The Pennsylvania Senate race is shaping up to be one that’s more fiercely fought online than on the ground, and it is working for Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D).
Months after his GOP opponent Memhet Oz posted a video of himself in a grocery store reading aloud the names of crudité vegetables to bring attention to their rising costs, Fetterman mocked the endeavor, remarking that, in Pennsylvania, it is called a “vegetable tray.”
Fetterman’s campaign raised more than $500,000 in the wake of the video, signaling their strategy of trolling Oz on social media is only going to ramp up.
After he had a stroke in May, Fetterman was forced off the campaign trail and is just now starting to go back on the road, but the viral retweet is another example of how his campaign’s digital push has let them stay on offense.
Our colleague Hanna Trudo previously wrote that it is a “strategy somewhat rare in Democratic politics” but it resonates with young voters, especially when trolling Oz as a former New Jerseyian who is running for a Pennsylvania seat.
Will more candidates take a page out of Fetterman’s book? The Biden administration may be already. Riding a wave of successes, Democrats and White House staff have appropriated a “Dark Brandon” meme, once used by Republicans to make fun of President Biden.
Others are using TikTok now more than ever to engage with younger voters, our colleague Rebecca Beitsch reported this month, seeing it as one of the best new mediums to show a funnier and lighter side of their personalities.
Take a … Jan. 6 … walking tour?
That headline is actually correct — “The Daily Show” is launching a free, self-guided walking tour that traces the route insurrectionists took to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Dubbed “In the Footsteps of the Freedomsurrection,” there will be 15 stops with audio chronicling the attack.
Read more from our colleague Judy Kurtz.
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