Trump Could Be Toxic for GOP

For the first time in re­cent memory, the Drudge Re­port went rogue Monday night. The site, typ­ic­ally a re­li­able ag­greg­at­or of pro-Trump news and opin­ion, splashed a front-and-cen­ter pic­ture of the Krem­lin along with the head­line “THE E-MAIL.” Linked was the New York Times bomb­shell story re­port­ing that the pres­id­ent’s son was aware that his meet­ing with a Rus­si­an at­tor­ney was “part of a Rus­si­an gov­ern­ment ef­fort to aid his fath­er’s can­did­acy.”

It’s a re­mind­er that, as loy­al as Trump’s base ap­pears to be, his sup­port is not guar­an­teed to last forever. As un­in­ter­ested as av­er­age voters sound about the gush­er of Rus­sia news, the sheer pos­sib­il­ity that the pres­id­ent’s fam­ily and cam­paign staff know­ingly met with Rus­si­an op­er­at­ives to gath­er dirt on Hil­lary Clin­ton is bound to break through the sum­mer slum­ber. It’s easy to for­get that Don­ald Trump has been pres­id­ent for less than six months. His­tor­ic­ally, it takes time for a pres­id­ent to bleed sig­ni­fic­ant sup­port from his own party. Even Richard Nix­on main­tained ma­jor­ity sup­port with­in his own party up un­til his resig­na­tion.

The latest Rus­sia rev­el­a­tions, laid out in emails re­leased by Don­ald Trump Jr., prove that the White House was be­ing dis­hon­est in claim­ing there were no im­prop­er con­tacts between Trump cam­paign of­fi­cials and Rus­si­an rep­res­ent­at­ives. Re­pub­lic­ans are now pan­ick­ing that there will be more rev­el­a­tions of im­pro­pri­ety, cre­at­ing a polit­ic­al firestorm that can’t be ex­plained away. The fact that Trump’s son re­vealed the dam­aging in­form­a­tion him­self—re­leas­ing the em­bar­rass­ing emails in full—de­prives the pres­id­ent’s stal­wart de­fend­ers of ar­guing that this bomb­shell is “fake news” from the lib­er­al me­dia.

The com­ing months will of­fer a test of who the true Trump diehards are, and who will be seek­ing cov­er in the name of midterm pro­tec­tion. The Sen­ate’s re­sound­ing 97-2 vote last month im­pos­ing new sanc­tions on Rus­sia (and Ir­an) showed that Re­pub­lic­ans rep­res­ent­ing broad­er con­stitu­en­cies are will­ing to break with Trump on the crit­ic­al is­sue of na­tion­al se­cur­ity. But House Re­pub­lic­ans’ ap­par­ent will­ing­ness to di­lute the le­gis­la­tion—at the re­quest of the White House—shows how strong the pull of par­tis­an­ship really is.

Here’s the di­lemma that Re­pub­lic­ans face, es­pe­cially those on a bal­lot next year. If con­gres­sion­al Re­pub­lic­ans break from Trump pub­licly, they risk los­ing sup­port from a base that they need to win reelec­tion. Even in more mod­er­ate dis­tricts, los­ing a large num­ber of Trump diehards could fore­close their path to vic­tory. It’s no co­in­cid­ence that the three Sen­ate GOP can­did­ates who lost last year (Mark Kirk, Kelly Ayotte, and Joe Heck) had pub­licly dis­tanced them­selves from Trump. Re­pub­lic­ans took that les­son to heart, and even those who can’t stand Trump keep their mouths shut pub­licly so as not to need­lessly ali­en­ate his core sup­port­ers. So far, it’s been a savvy short-term strategy.

But if the Trump team’s en­tire de­fense on Rus­sia falls apart in the face of in­con­tro­vert­ible evid­ence, GOP can­did­ates will be hung out to dry if they dodge the is­sue. The early spin from Trump de­fend­ers so far is that at­temp­ted col­lu­sion with the Rus­si­ans isn’t il­leg­al. That’s not a ten­able de­fense for any­one else rep­res­ent­ing the Re­pub­lic­an Party. And if evid­ence emerges that the pres­id­ent was aware that his cam­paign op­er­at­ives sought polit­ic­al as­sist­ance from Rus­si­ans, it could even­tu­ally punc­ture the Trump bubble.

Already, these de­vel­op­ments are caus­ing typ­ic­ally loy­al Re­pub­lic­ans to keep their dis­tance. Rep. Lee Zeld­in of New York, who rep­res­ents a swing Trump-friendly dis­trict on Long Is­land, wrote on Twit­ter: “I voted for @POTUS last Nov. & want him & USA to suc­ceed, but that meet­ing, giv­en that email chain just re­leased, is a big no-no.”

What’s iron­ic is that, un­til this week, Rus­sia wasn’t look­ing like a top is­sue driv­ing next year’s midterm elec­tions. Re­pub­lic­ans and Demo­crats alike agreed that health care would carry more weight than the pres­id­ent’s Rus­si­an con­nec­tions. Rus­sia hardly came up in the high-stakes spe­cial elec­tions that Re­pub­lic­ans won earli­er this year. Some Re­pub­lic­ans were even egging on Demo­crats to make the midterms about im­peach­ment, hop­ing there would be a back­lash against par­tis­an over­reach. Now, all bets are off.

In a sign of the changed polit­ic­al at­mo­sphere, the usu­ally re­strained Tim Kaine is now sug­gest­ing Trump’s son may have com­mit­ted treas­on. The Demo­crat­ic Con­gres­sion­al Cam­paign Com­mit­tee is press­ing House Re­pub­lic­ans on wheth­er they be­lieve Trump col­luded with Rus­sia. It’s hard to find any elec­ted Re­pub­lic­ans de­fend­ing Trump’s ac­tions; Zeld­in’s “big no-no” was a clas­sic in con­gres­sion­al rhet­or­ic. Even the White House is hunkered down in crisis mode.

It’s pre­ma­ture to de­clare that this new evid­ence of at­temp­ted col­lu­sion will make Rus­sia a cent­ral is­sue in the midterms. But if Re­pub­lic­ans aren’t buy­ing some Trump in­sur­ance to pro­tect them­selves from a fierce back­lash, they’ll be risk­ing polit­ic­al sui­cide.