Goldstone’s latest book is “Not White Enough: The Long, Shameful Road to Japanese American Internment.” Learn more at www.lawrencegoldstone.com.
Well, Donald Trump was not accused of standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shooting someone, an act that he once bragged would not cause him to lose voters.
But he came close.
He has been accused of blithely sitting in Mar a Lago or Bedminster and potentially causing American clandestine agents to be shot, or worse, in the countries in which they risk their lives and freedom to help protect the United States. He was accused of a good deal more, of course, including compromising nuclear secrets, revealing war plans, and treating the nation’s most closely guarded intelligence as personal playthings.
He has yet to be brought to trial for any of these offenses, but the level of detail in the 49-page indictment is remarkable, complete with photographs, verbatim transcripts of text messages, and grand jury testimony by his former lawyer, who was required to break the otherwise sacrosanct attorney-client privilege under what is known as the “crime-fraud” exception.
Given what he felt comfortable storing in a bathroom or on the stage of a ballroom, Trump’s handling of classified material could easily have represented a bigger risk to national security than, say, what Robert Hanssen gave to the Russians; and Hanssen just died while serving a life sentence in America’s most harsh and secure prison.
It was, then, fair to speculate on how members of the Republican Party, to whom national security and law and order used to be mantras, would react. Would they finally realize that maybe, just maybe, it was time to place the good of the country above pandering to what is euphemistically called “the base,” or would they continue to kowtow to a man who openly treats bootlickers with contempt?
Sadly, to the surprise of almost no one, they chose the latter and defended him, sort of.
Kevin McCarthy fumed, “Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America. It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” neglecting to note that Biden had absolutely no role in the affair. Then he vowed, “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”
Ted Cruz lamented, “I have to say today is a very sad day in American history. It is a shameful day in American history. It is a disgraceful day in American history,” not because a former president had behaved so dishonorably, but that he was being called to account for it. An “assault on democracy” is how Cruz described the behavior of a special counsel who had made his reputation prosecuting war criminals.
Another of the usual suspects, Josh Hawley, sighed, “This is not about Donald Trump ultimately; this is about the United States of America. This is about whether the Constitution is still real in this country. This is about whether any American, any American can expect the due process of law.” Of course, due process of law was precisely what Trump is receiving.
Still, conspicuous by its absence in all of these righteously indignant denunciations is the most obvious defense of all for the former president.
That he is innocent.
Not one of his defenders has said he or she believes Trump is not guilty of the charges. Quite the reverse—almost all of these responses strongly imply they are certain he is guilty. The strongest defense they have offered is that everyone—except Hillary Clinton and the Bidens, of course—is innocent until proven guilty, the sort of thing a high-priced defense lawyer tells the press about a dead-to-rights client like John Gotti or Bernie Madoff.
But guilty or innocent, these Republicans are demonstrating their commitment to the rule of law and equal justice by insisting that Trump not be prosecuted because...from there it gets a bit vague.
Some think the case should not go forward because Trump is a political figure, a man who is running again for president, likely to keep himself out of jail. Others think he should not be prosecuted because Hillary Clinton was not, forgetting that she was investigated by multiple Republican-led agencies, none of which recommended that charges be brought. Still others think Trump should escape prosecution because the FBI is corrupt and favors Democrats, failing to add that the FBI is traditionally one of the most right-wing organizations in the United States and that every single director in its history, including the current one, has been a Republican.
A final rationale is the most damning and was trotted out during Trump’s two impeachments as well. It asserts that Trump should not be prosecuted, no matter what his crimes, because of the irreparable damage it would inflict on the country, the same argument that was made for not prosecuting senior officials of the Catholic Church for failing to expose child molesters.
In the end, Republicans’ reasoning is all too apparent. They don’t want Trump to be prosecuted because it threatens their jobs. Without Trump’s voters, they have no chance of winning the presidency in 2024, holding the House, or taking the Senate. They well know that if they do not sufficiently kiss Trump’s…ring…he is likely to do everything he can to destroy those who slighted him, which will doom the party to another defeat.
Since once again, Republicans have chosen to stand by a man who could be sentenced to prison—and deserve it—the nation has only one place to look in the hopes that the lofty ideals politicians are so fond of spouting will, even to some small degree, reflect the actual country Americans live in.
Voters.
Which is why the charges needed to be as serious as they are. If what Trump was being charged with was in any way technical or relied on legal gymnastics, his bleats of victimization might actually strike a chord. But these charges are clear: here was a man who so needed to show off that he was happy to put both his country and those who support it at risk, in some cases at risk of their lives.
Republicans who continue to support Trump are hoping that a combination of faux outrage, short memories, and fealty to a potential felon will allow them to prevail in 2024.
Those American voters who think more of the country than they do have the opportunity to prove them wrong.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.