WATCH: Republican Senator Unwilling To Affirm His 2024 Support For Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s candidacy, presidency, and cult-like control of Republican voters has turned his party’s electoral process into a televised reality program, where facts matter less than popularity, and the leader’s anointment has significance beyond almost any other factor. The result is a party whose members must be cautious about any words that might be read as disloyalty, even when they aren’t sure they can shoulder the cost of continued support.
Here’s Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), being pressed to state whether he’ll support Trump if he’s the party nominee in 2024. Blunt can’t go so far as to say he’d oppose Trump, but he’s also not ready, at this point, to pledge even his hypothetical support. Instead, he dances around saying that his only other choice would be to support the Democratic nominee, and to try addressing the reasons he believes people supported Trump and might again.
Roy Blunt squirms when grilled about whether he'll commit to supporting Donald Trump if he's the Republican nominee in 2024 and doesn't totally do it pic.twitter.com/YsWeauSsr9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2022
Q: Will you commit to supporting the Republican nominee, even if it’s Donald Trump?
A: Well, you know, it’s a long time between now and then. Overnight’s a long time in politics. I can’t imagine that I won’t.
Even party members like Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has appeared to engage in a public feud with the former president, has said that he will support the Republican nominee in 2024, and that if that means supporting Trump again, he’ll do so — despite Trump’s active efforts to oust McConnell from party leadership.
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