Republican former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is the kind of old school GOP politician who is willing to criticize the party’s current frontrunner for the presidential nomination, former President Donald Trump.
What makes McDonnell willing to publicly question whether Trump is the best “standard bearer” the Republican Party can put forward isn’t McDonnell’s unwavering belief that Republicans must display a certain level of conduct to represent the party.
Instead, what makes McDonnell willing to criticize Trump is the simple fact that he is not running for office. As a political non-combatant, McDonnell can afford to shoulder the ire of the MAGA faithful in a way anyone running simply cannot, as the recent treatment of former Vice President Mike Pence in Iowa shows.
Trump supporters continue to heckle Pence at the Iowa State Fair.
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 10, 2023
You bought the ticket on the Trump Train, Mike. Enjoy the ride. pic.twitter.com/MAaMLUC9aT
(Pence’s status in the contemporary GOP is a cautionary tale for any Republican on the wrong side of Trump.)
Yet even McDonnell, from a position of relative freedom, says he’ll still vote for Trump if Trump wins the GOP nomination, despite delivering a fairly comprehensive rejection of what makes Trump Trump. “I don’t like the tone, I don’t like the arrogance, name-calling, bullying,” McDonnell says of the former president.
Coates: Would you vote for Trump if he clinches that nomination?
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 11, 2023
McDonnell: Yes. He is not my first choice. I don't like the tone, arrogance, name-calling, bullying. I think we have better standard bearers. pic.twitter.com/BN6xxpl0z1
McDonnell also says, about one of the two federal criminal cases against Trump: “I think the president’s got serious criminal culpability.”
McDonnell: I think in the Florida case, if he can actually prove and has evidence that is believable on the allegations… I think the president's got serious criminal culpability. I think differently though in the January 6th cases… pic.twitter.com/74gMo3OHXw
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 11, 2023
Unlike McDonnell, Republicans who are currently running have to consider the untenable position of being anti-MAGA in the party — and tread carefully. Top Trump GOP presidential rival Ron DeSantis is a prime example — the Florida Governor only sinks in the polls when he criticizes Trump, even if he has done that only gently.
Former NJ Governor Chris Christie, whose poll numbers can’t really sink far from where they are, and who has gone after Trump as his main platform, says other Republicans have to whisper what McDonnell says aloud.
Here’s what most Republicans know but are afraid to say in public:
— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) July 3, 2023
1. Trump is too self-consumed to ever be an effective president.
2. He’s been a political failure.
It’s time we stop whispering this. We can’t be afraid of him if we want to govern.https://t.co/9LOaL76eT0 pic.twitter.com/56ONW7aJI6
As Christie portrays it, if someone like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy were to run afoul of Trump, his career would be in immediate jeopardy. That means in today’s GOP, a powerful office holder like McCarthy remains beholden – if he wants to keep his job — to a man who was voted out of office three years ago.
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