Republicans’ enduring loyalty to Donald Trump was on vivid display at a conservative conference this weekend, convened just two weeks after the former president was indicted on 37 federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Addressing this year’s Road to Majority conference Saturday, Trump lashed out against federal prosecutors, who have accused the former president of intentionally withholding classified documents from authorities and obstructing justice in his efforts to keep those materials concealed. Trump, who could soon face additional charges in Washington and Georgia, told the friendly crowd that he considered each of his two indictments so far to be “a great badge of courage” as he ran to unseat the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.
“Joe Biden has weaponized law enforcement to interfere in our elections,” Trump told the conservative audience. “I’m being indicted for you.”
Trump was among several Republican presidential candidates to speak at the conference, held in Washington and hosted by the rightwing evangelical group Faith and Freedom Coalition.
His message was echoed by some of his presidential primary opponents, several of whom used their conference speeches to attack the allegedly politicized Department of Justice.
The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, promised to replace the FBI’s director – Christopher Wray, appointed during Trump’s presidency – while the South Carolina US senator Tim Scott pledged to fire the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and “change the trajectory of this nation by focusing on restoring confidence and integrity” in the US justice department.
But one of Trump’s primary opponents, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, did not shy away from directly confronting the former president, accusing him of “letting us down”.
“He’s unwilling to take responsibility for any of the mistakes that were made, any of the faults that he has, and any of the things that he’s done,” Christie told the conference on Friday. “And that is not leadership, everybody. That is a failure of leadership.”
The remarks were met with some scattered applause and loud booing as one conference attendee shouted at Christie, “We love Trump!”
Amid the jeers, Christie added: “You can boo all you want, but here’s the thing: our faith teaches us that people have to take responsibility for what they do, that people have to stand up and take accountability for what they do, and I cannot stand by.”
Speaking a day later, Trump mocked Christie for getting “booed off the stage”, even though he was in fact allowed to finish his remarks. The insult was greeted with loud applause from the crowd, who repeatedly broke out into chants of “USA!” and “We love Trump!”
Timothy Head, executive director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, commended Christie for his willingness to “walk into the lion’s den”, adding: “It’s overwhelmingly a pro-Trump room at this conference and a pro-Trump movement broadly speaking, and so I guess from that standpoint, it certainly took some courage to do that knowingly.”
Amy Leahy, a 69-year-old conference attendee from Maryland, said she strongly disagreed with Christie’s attacks on Trump. “I’m not happy to hear him say those things,” Leahy said. She added: “It’s not going to get him elected president.”
The conference’s negative response to Christie and the effusive praise of Trump underscored the former president’s resilient popularity among the Republican voters who will determine the party’s nominee next year. Trump continues to dominate in polls of likely Republican primary voters, even after his two arrests in New York and Florida.
If anything, Trump’s most recent indictment appears to have inspired more sympathy among the party loyalists at the Road to Majority.
“They’re going after him just because he is Donald Trump, and I don’t think the charges are valid,” Leahy said. “I think a lot of people are supporting him in the knowledge that, or the assumption that, he is being railroaded.”
Albert Tumminello, an 86-year-old conference attendee from Virginia who said he was leaning toward supporting Trump in the primary, echoed that belief, arguing the federal charges against the former president should not disqualify him from seeking office.
“He’s been under much more duress than we can ever imagine,” Tumminello added.
Polling taken since Trump’s second indictment indicates that sentiment is shared by a wide swath of the Republican primary electorate. According to an NBC News survey released on Sunday, 51% of Republican voters name Trump as their top choice to be the party’s nominee, marking a six-point increase since April. Trump’s next closest competitor, DeSantis, trails the former president by 29 points.
Trump joked on Saturday: “I’m probably the only person in history in this country who’s been indicted, and my numbers went up.”
Those data points have only intensified skepticism over whether any other Republican candidate can win substantial support from evangelical voters, who will play an outsized role in early voting states like Iowa. Head acknowledged that Trump enjoys the advantage of goodwill with evangelical voters because of his White House accomplishments, particularly on the issue of abortion.
As he spoke on Saturday, which marked one year since the end of Roe v Wade, Trump bragged about nominating three of the supreme court justices who supported overturning that landmark case, which established federal abortion rights. Although he remained vague on his preferred timeline for a nationwide abortion ban, Trump said: “There of course remains a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life.
“I’m proud to be the most pro-life president in American history,” Trump said, prompting more loud cheers.
Despite Trump’s significant advantage, Head emphasized that other primary candidates still have the time and the opportunity to make their mark with evangelical voters.
“They feel like they know what they get with [Trump], and they very much like what they get with him,” Head said. “But I think a lot of people are interested in maybe going back into the market, so to speak, to see if there is anything else, either on policy or on style, that they like better.
“I think this is a race. It’s far from over.”
