The House Republican leadership has given a full-throated defense of Donald Trump following his 37-count indictment for violations of the Espionage Act, Speaker of the House Rep. Kevin McCarthy said.
“Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tweeted. “It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him. Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades. I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump.”
The number two Republican, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), also gave a strong defense of Trump. “Let’s be clear about what’s happening: Joe Biden is weaponizing his Department of Justice against his own political rival. This sham indictment is the continuation of the endless political persecution of Donald Trump.”
While the GOP House rushed to Trump’s side to defend him, there was only a deafening silence from the Senate Republican leadership.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) won’t even use Trump’s name in refusing to comment on the indictment.
“They want him to go away so they wouldn’t be very upset if this is the thing that finally takes him out,” said a former Senate Republican aide about the Senate Republican leaders’ silence on Trump’s indictment.
McConnell, who is careful not to comment on Trump or even repeat his name in public, has said to his GOP colleagues that he wants his party to turn the page on the former president, whom he sees as a flawed general election candidate and a drag on Senate Republican candidates.
The Senate GOP leader’s top deputies — Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — have also indicated they don’t want Trump to win the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.
They along with McConnell are letting Trump’s legal troubles play out without coming to the former president’s defense.
Both McCarthy and McConnell are playing the political game exactly right. The House is far more conservative than the Senate, and no matter McCarthy’s personal feelings on the indictment, he can’t afford to not come out strongly in defense of Trump.
The Republican minority in the Senate is slightly less conservative than the House, but McConnell is an 800-lb gorilla in the chamber. His 38 years in the Senate make him one of the most powerful people in Washington. In short, McConnell’s animus for Trump — hate he’s held since Jan. 6, 2021 — means he doesn’t have to lift a finger to help someone who has constantly denigrated and belittled him.
House and Senate Republican leaders have diverged for years on how and whether to even respond to Donald Trump’s legal woes. During Trump’s first indictment this spring, McConnell didn’t jump in to defend Trump and when he returned in April after a fall and was asked at a news conference by CNN’s Manu Raju about the indictment, he dodged.
“I may have hit my head, but I didn’t hit it that hard,” McConnell said at the time. “Good try.”
For McConnell, who has not maintained a relationship with Trump since January 6, 2021, the former president could be viewed as a distraction from his ultimate goals of recapturing the Senate. But for McCarthy, an alliance to Trump is an important factor for assuaging those in his right flank, especially at a moment when the House speaker has come under fire for a deal he cut with President Joe Biden on the debt ceiling.
Trump is not going to go away even if another Republican wins the nomination — a slim chance at this point. So we’ll see what McConnell’s attitude toward Trump will be when the former president has the nomination wrapped up and the two men are going to have to work together to win in 2024.
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