Top Republican officials continue to rally around former President Trump
after his conviction last week on 34 felony counts.
And even Trump's Republican skeptics like Mitt Romney are criticizing
the case.
This prosecution is kind of uniting different wings of the
Republican Party.
Do you think that could have an impact on the
presidential race?
Yeah, It's fascinating. There isn't much that can unite either
of the parties these days,
especially Trump being such a polarizing figure within the Republican
Party.
But we really have been seeing different factions and ends
of the Republican Party.
Come together and criticize these charges,
not necessarily the allegations against the president,
but rather the way that it was handled.
A lot of folks going after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin
Bragg,
accusing him of campaigning on the fact that he would
eventually go after Biden.
A lot of folks aiming their fire at Michael Cohen,
the prosecution's star witness, saying that he was an untrustworthy.
Untrustworthy witness. So we are seeing these different ideological factions
of the Republican Party come together.
Whether or not it'll have an effect on the November
elections,
that still remains to be seen.
You know, right now the polls are still shaking out.
I will note there was a few polls that showed
that a double digit number,
about 10 to 15% of voters maybe don't want to
vote for Trump now after this conviction.
And of course, Trump also still has the Nikki Haley
problem.
The fact that in a bunch of the final states
where there were Republican nominating contests,
Nikki Haley still brought in about 20%
of the vote. So as we talk about the November
election and we say see that all the state by
state polls and the national surveys are so close.
It's going to come down to just a few voters
in a few states.
That means that if anybody is apprehensive about Trump because
of the conviction or anyone's apprehensive about him because they
are more in favor of Nikki Haley,
that could be detrimental to his campaign.
So a good sign that sort of the Republican Party
is uniting in a way behind being against the conviction,
but still have to wait and see how it shakes
out in terms of effect on the election.