Former Reagan strategist Ed Rollins told Newsmax that former President Donald Trump has all but locked up the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
“No one in the Republican primaries is going to beat, defeat President Trump,” Ed Rollins, who once voiced his support for Florida Governor Ronald Reagan, said during an appearance on Newsmax’s Sunday Report.
“He has a strong, solid base. It’s gotten stronger as he’s gone through these terrible indictments. The fact that he’s been indicted on 91 counts is just absurd,” Rollins said.
The longtime GOP strategist went on to describe President Biden as “very vulnerable” and questioned the political strategy behind the indictments. Rollins suggested that the legal proceedings will galvanize the GOP base while others will see the indictments as a distraction.
“At the end of the day here, we’re going to spend all of our time watching trials or listening to trials analysis as opposed to discussing the issues,” Rollins told Newsmax host Joe Pinion.
“This is a very vulnerable President Biden, and the former president can stand up there and take everything apart from the immigration to the economy and what have you,” he continued. “And unfortunately the challenge will be to breakthrough when you’ve got all this legal stuff, and I think to a certain extent Republicans ought to be talking about those issues, not about Trump’s legal problems.”
Rollins did express concern over strain posed on both large and small donors over the past two election cycles and worried that Trump’s legal bills could detract from winnable races. “Republican donors, small and large, have been pressed pretty hard the last couple of years both of President Trump and also for the Senate candidates, and they will be again,” Rollins noted.
“The thing that worries me about the president is that he’s got such enormous legal challenges and the cost of paying for those, which he’s paid most of his own fees out of his part of his PACs.”
Despite increased legal costs, the former president has continuously set fundraising records in the immediate aftermath of the indictments. The Trump campaign recently announced that the release of the former President’s Fulton County mugshot led to an all-time high in single-day fundraising.