WASHINGTON — Mitch McConnell said Donald Trump “provoked” a violent mob. Roy Blunt called the former president’s actions “reckless.” Lindsey Graham declared that “enough is enough.”
Earlier this month, it appeared leading Republican senators were headed toward their most significant break with Trump yet after his supporters conducted a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. But that dynamic quickly changed.
After only a handful of House Republicans voted to impeach Trump and faced swift backlash from the party’s base, most of their GOP colleagues in the Senate voted to dismiss the trial altogether as unconstitutional.
And just over a week after he placed some of the blame for the mob at Trump’s feet, a stone-faced McConnell would only allow that he would “listen to the evidence” presented in the forthcoming Senate trial slated to begin Feb. 9.
The softening stance revealed a hard truth for Republicans: Even defeated and deplatformed from social media outlets, Trump still holds an iron-fisted grip on the heart of their party.
The whiplash, according to strategists and officials in both parties, is the result of a calculation from GOP leaders that as much as some are desperate to move on from Trump’s divisive presidency, they see little hope of returning to power in Washington in the next election without his voters.
“If we get into a civil war, by the time we get through it, we’ll just have to figure out how to rebuild the Republican Party again,” said Katon Dawson, the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. “We need to figure out how to expand the party, not eviscerate it. There’s landmine after landmine if we’re not careful.”
That tension is most acutely felt by McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who initially signaled through anonymous aides that he was intrigued by impeachment as a vehicle for quelling Trump’s influence over the party. Now political operatives say that flirtation looks more like a trial balloon that’s already popped.
McConnell’s decision to join the majority of his caucus in questioning whether the trial of a former president is even constitutional left few observers believing he would ultimately vote to convict Trump. Only five Senate Republicans voted that the trial should proceed, signaling that it’s extremely unlikely that at least 17 Republicans would join with the Democrats to secure a conviction.
“McConnell knows Trump is an ankle weight on the party so he attempted to lean in the direction of cutting him loose — but his caucus is still terrified of the former president and wouldn’t go along,” said Matt House, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “I think he was smart to try to go for the jugular, but he didn’t do it with enough force or consistency to overwhelm the caucus and force them to come along, so he’s retreating.”
Few Senate Republicans are choosing to defend Trump’s behavior. But the constitutional question over the legality of a Senate trial combined with the political concern of expending time debating the actions of a former elected official have provided Republicans with an off-ramp.
Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who advised the Republican Senate caucus on those impeachment quandaries this week, said that while it was a “close call … the costs outweigh [the] value in retroactive trials.”
After years of a Trump-dominated political environment, Republicans would rather see the spotlight shift to President Joe Biden’s agenda.
“Republicans don’t want to spend the opening weeks of the Biden administration relitigating Trump’s failures,” said Alex Conant, a Republican consultant who previously worked for Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. “Most Republican senators want to turn the page on the Trump era and start fresh. I think there is no consensus on how best to do that.”
While the ultimate reward for McConnell and other Trump-weary Republicans would be a conviction and a potential vote that barred the former president from ever holding office again, the risks of a revolt are much more likely.
According to a new Morning Consult survey, 75% of Republican voters said they would disapprove of a Senate conviction and 81% said they held positive views of Trump.
“We’re kind of at this crossroads for the Republicans,” said Saul Anuzis, the former chairman of the Michigan GOP. “In the short term, it’s still about Trump.”
With an evenly divided Senate and a narrow Democratic majority in the House, Republicans see an opportunity to take control of both chambers of Congress next year. But some members of the party are nervous that bitter primary battles will be detrimental to their chances.
The 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, including Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, are facing the prospect of primary challenges and censures from local parties led by the former president’s supporters.
And open Senate seats in battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio due to upcoming Republican retirements could lead to drawn-out, multi-candidate fights that could hinder the party’s efforts to unify before the general election. GOP Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa have also not yet said if they will run for re-election in 2022.
“This intra-party war that we’re having right now is not good for our country,” said Matt Micheli, the former chairman of the Wyoming Republican Party. “We’re bigger than one persona and we’ve got to include all conservatives who are fighting for the same ideas and beliefs beyond personalities.”
While many Republicans don’t see an immediate path to success without a fully motivated Trump base, others argue the last two elections show the limits of a strategy that relies heavily on the former president. Trump also galvanized liberals and alienated moderates, leading to Republicans losing control of the White House, the Senate and the House on his watch.
“I think it would be insane for this party to go to the American people in 2022 and say, ‘Do you know what we need? More Trump,’” said Scott Jennings, a former McConnell aide. “How many times are we going to step on these rakes before we decide maybe stepping on rakes is a terrible idea?”
