Tom Nichols, a one-time Republican who fled the party after it nominated former President Donald Trump, said on The Bulwark podcast this week that there are no charges that he can imagine would force the Republican Party to abandoning him.
While talking with host Charlie Sykes, Nichols argued that Trump has essentially convinced his followers that any criminal charges against him are a product of the nefarious "deep state" trying to prevent him from becoming president again.
"It's a way for him to keep presenting his faithful in the Trump Cult with the storyline that, not only am I untouchable, I should be untouchable, because I'm me," he said. "It's just red meat for the rallygoers... it gets people past the ugly problem of they know he's guilty of all this! Instead, it goads them to where they need to be emotionally and mentally, saying, 'It doesn't matter, he's Donald Trump.'"
Sykes then turned his attention to congressional Republicans and predicted that there will be "literally nothing" in an indictment of the former president related to his attempts to illegally remain in power after losing the 2020 election that would change Republicans' minds.
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Nichols agreed and said that it was becoming clear that Republicans had a lack of patriotism by excusing all of Trump's alleged crimes.
"There's no point at which they stop and say, hey, we're defending a guy that went on an anti-constitutional crime spree, and is still doing it," he said.
