Potential 2024 GOP Candidates Defend Trump After FBI Raid, but Will They Remain Loyal?

Posted on by Staff

In this era of instant mass communication, ambitious politicians find it much more challenging to sit on the sidelines in the wake of an international lead story with electoral impact. Considering the fact that the FBI raid on former President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach is at a minimum, terrible optics, nobody would have been surprised if potential 2024 Republican Primary candidates remained neutral until the results and findings of the raid were made public.

Instead, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Trump’s former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and other prominent members of the Republican Party are evidently thinking in short term benefit and seizing the opportunity this story offers to broadcast their loyalty to Trump. One notable exception is Senator Tim Scott, who showed a more open-minded approach yet still took the chance to criticize the FBI. First, lets take a look at the comments from DeSantis, Cruz and Haley, below:

Tim Scott was More measured in his morning commentary with CBS than his social media posts:

FORMER 2016 Candidate Chris Christie Says Trump’s Estate was Fair Game for Raid

One Republican who didn’t condemn the siege was former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Christie told Julie Mason’s radio show on Tuesday that while he has some “concerns” about the FBI’s search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, he believes looking through Trump’s personal safe was “fair game.” Christie, who has seen his star power in the party significantly diminished since his unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid, added:

“I trust that it had to have been and I hope that they understood the implications, both from a policy perspective for the Justice Department and politically, of doing something really as unprecedented as raiding the home or office of a former president…So I have concerns this morning about it but I also am not going to jump to any conclusions, because I know I don’t know all the facts about it. This is not something you should be doing willy-nilly. This is something that should be backed up by grave concerns about the conduct of the subject of the search warrant.” Christie said, noting that a federal judge would have had to sign off on the search warrant.

CONCLUSION: GOP STARS STILL HAVE ROOM TO PIVOT

Don’t expect these tones and comments to last if damning evidence is unearthed as a result of the raid. Each aforementioned Republican leader knows that the majority of the American public won’t begrudge the FBI if they ultimately show that major federal laws were broken and charge former President Trump. Should such evidence go public, current Trump apologists can appease both moderate Republicans and Trump’s supporters in the party by saying that they don’t agree with tactics that the FBI used to obtain the evidence, but can’t continue to support Trump due to FBI charges and/or Trump’s disregard for federal law.