Top Republican lawmakers are at a crossroads as former President Donald Trump is set to receive his third indictment.
Three Senate Republicans in particular — Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-SD), Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (R-WY), and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) — will have to choose between withdrawing their support from the former president and risking their leadership positions or continuing to rally behind Trump and risking a repeat of the 2022 midterm elections.
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As possible successors to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), their defense of or opposition to the former president could affect their chances of leading the Republican Party in the future.
McConnell and Trump have a rocky relationship, with the former ramping up attacks since the 2022 midterm elections, in which Republicans had a worse-than-expected performance. Several GOP leaders, including McConnell, blamed Trump for endorsing hard-line conservative candidates who beat centrist Republicans in the primaries but failed to defeat Democrats, resulting in Democrats maintaining a majority in the Senate and Republicans having a slim majority in the House.
Since the indictments, Thune, Barrasso, and Cornyn have had different messages on Trump’s legal troubles and his electability as a candidate. As a possible leader of the Senate, each one’s support of the party’s top nominee could affect his ability to gain support among fellow senators and voters.
Barrasso was the only one of the three to release a statement following Trump’s third indictment over the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“The American people have lost faith in Biden’s Justice Department,” Barrasso told Punchbowl News. “They are uncomfortable watching the current president weaponize the justice system against his political opponent.”
As someone who is up for reelection in 2024, Barrasso appears to be attaching himself to Trump, the GOP front-runner for the nomination. The Wyoming senator is known for bringing GOP leadership and the conference’s hard-line members together, so his Trump-related comments could be a strategy to draw Republican senators to his side for future leadership elections.
Thune, on the other hand, has stepped away from Trump, following the lead of several traditional Republicans who are either endorsing another 2024 GOP candidate or have explicitly stated that Trump is unelectable.
The South Dakota senator has endorsed Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who has launched a campaign that appeals to established Republicans and rarely invokes Trump in any speeches or social media posts. Thune has steered clear from offering opinions as to whether the Jack Smith indictments of Trump are the “weaponization” of the federal government.
“There are very serious allegations in the indictment, and I think the Justice Department — as they attempt to prove their case — they’ve got a high burden of proof to convince people that they’re handling this fairly and as they would for any other elected official,” Thune said in June when Smith indicted Trump for his handling of classified documents.
However, polling has shown that a majority of Republican voters support Trump in the primary despite the indictments brought against him. Only 13% of Republicans said Trump committed “serious federal crimes” in a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Tuesday.
Cornyn, who received an endorsement from Trump in the 2020 election, has openly questioned whether Trump has the chance to beat President Joe Biden in the 2024 general election. Like Thune and McConnell, he has been wary of Trump’s lingering influence over the Republican Party.
He also has cast doubt that Trump can appeal beyond his “enthusiastic” supporters to attract moderate Republicans and independent voters, which will be necessary to win a general election.
“We need to come up with an alternative,” he said in May via Dallas Morning News. “I think President Trump’s time has passed him by, and what’s the most important thing to me is we have a candidate who can actually win.”
Since then, Trump has blasted Cornyn as a RINO, or Republican In Name Only, and his campaign has called the Texas senator part of “the problem.”
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How Thune, Barrasso, and Cornyn’s comments toward Trump affect leadership elections depends on whether Trump secures the Republican presidential nomination. The Republican National Committee made it a rule that all primary candidates must agree to endorse the GOP nominee.
If that nominee is Trump, it is likely that Thune and Cornyn, regardless of their original preferences, will also offer their support to the former president in the general election. McConnell has avoided speaking about Trump’s legal battles and endorsing a candidate in the 2024 primary, but he most likely will put his battle with the former president aside and rally Republican voters to beat Biden in 2024.
