Donald Trump‘s supporters are famously loyal. They followed his lead when he said the 2020 election was stolen from him. Some of them even stormed the Capitol to defend his honor and ended up in deep legal trouble. So far, many of them are sticking by him in the Republican presidential primary for 2024, as the rest of the field has been unable to knock him out of his polling lead.
And now, many of them are saying that they’d even be willing to have him be their president — from prison.
“If he’s convicted and he wins, put the Oval Office in whatever prison they have him in,” Dayna Duke, a Trump supporter from Arizona, said.
“It would be kind of fun to see actually. I know that sounds crazy,” Travis McMahon, a Trump rally attendee in Dubuque, Iowa, said.
“He can still run for president if he’s behind bars and he would still get the same amount of votes,” Republican Vicki Scott said. “Keep him tied up all next year, and we’re still going to vote for him. And I’ll tell you what, if it gets stolen again, it might be a third world war.”
The possibility that Trump would become president while in prison is remote — not to mention that it would likely trigger a constitutional crisis. He would have to be thrown in prison, qualify to be on the ballot in every state and then get elected. His lawyers would no doubt argue that he should not be in prison because it would impede him from doing his job as the newly elected president of the United States and would push to get him out. And if none of that worked, he could theoretically pardon himself once sworn in, at least on the federal charges.
I mean, you can’t have a phone in prison, so I don’t know how you serve as president of the United States.
Former Missouri State SEn. Jeff Smith, who has served time in prison
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian and professor at Rice University, said that while the possibility is remote, it’s “plausible” Trump could be president — even briefly — while in prison.
“It is plausible this could happen. We’re not just talking pie in the sky,” he said.
Brinkley said he couldn’t envision more than a symbolic week of a President Trump behind bars before his Justice Department finds an escape valve, but the logistics of even a few days of such a scenario would render an active president authoritatively debilitated.
“The White House apparatus would be moved into a jail cell, and he would probably govern via his lawyer, who would be his chief of staff,” Brinkley said.
So while it’s unlikely, it’s telling that Trump’s followers are so devoted that they’d stick with him even if it happens.
Trump is facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases. His supporters have long followed the lead of the former president when asked about the severity of his legal trouble. “Badge of honor,” “phony charges” and “weaponized by the Justice Department” are phrases frequently used.
Trump rarely speaks about the possibility of prison but did so at a campaign stop in Clive, Iowa, on Monday.
“What they don’t understand is that I am willing to go to jail if that’s what it takes for our country to win and become a democracy again,” Trump told the crowd.
In September, he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he wasn’t worried about going to jail.
“I don’t even think about it,” he said.
“I think he would govern well from wherever he was,” added Cherry Norris, a Republican from Hilton Head, Arizona.
When asked if her support would waver at all if Trump was running the country from a jail cell, Karen Crosby, a Republican from Columbia, South Carolina, said, “I will support him because the man is amazing. I think this is such corruptness today it’s unbelievable.”
Jeff Smith has experience of what it’s like to be in prison. The former Missouri state senator with a budding political future spent a year in a Kentucky correctional facility after pleading guilty in 2009 to lying to federal authorities about illegal campaign activities. Based on his experience behind bars, Smith made clear he did not believe it was possible to serve time while serving in elected office.
“I mean, you can’t have a phone in prison, so I don’t know how you serve as president of the United States,” Smith said. “A president who can’t go to the site of a national disaster, a president who can’t take overseas trips. A president who is so limited in terms of the traditional symbolic presidency.”
Still, Trump’s base is emboldened by their leader. Even after Trump recently upped his violent rhetoric on the campaign trail by suggesting that former Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley deserved to face the death penalty, among other statements, most of his supporters stood fervently by his words.
“He’s saying how the American people feel,” said Dara Price, a former Democrat from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I think there’s a lot of people in Washington, D.C., that are so disconnected from the heart of America.”
“Americans understand this is an illegal witch hunt against President Trump,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign. “The weaponized, two-tiered justice system brought by Joe Biden and radical Democrats to go after their leading political opponent sends a chilling message that this is acceptable in this country.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
