Voters are 'angry' over Trump's criminal charges because they don't seem 'legitimate': 'It just looks so fake,' GOP senator says

Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

• Donald Trump faces a series of trials even if he does capture the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
• For GOP lawmakers like Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, Trump’s legal issues only anger the public.
• “It just looks so fake, so contrived that people are disgusted with it,” Lummis told HuffPost.

If former President Donald Trump captures the Republican presidential nomination this year, his candidacy will be unavoidably enmeshed in the myriad legal issues he faces.

For Republicans seeking to turn the page from Trump, the former president’s 91 criminal charges are a distraction from the 2024 campaign, which could be decided by the narrowest of margins in a handful of key swing states.

But for Republican lawmakers who are firmly behind Trump, the criminal charges have elicited scorn, with some senators arguing that voters are incensed about the ex-president’s legal predicament because they believe he didn’t commit any crimes.

In fact, among the GOP electorate, Trump’s standing seems to be strengthening as he faces several upcoming trials; the former president won the Iowa caucus convincingly and will likely coast to victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary on January 23.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming recently told The Huffington Post that to many members of the public, Trump’s legal issues seem “fake.”

“His legal challenges are making the public so angry because the lawsuits look punitive rather than legitimate,” she told the outlet. “It just looks so fake, so contrived that people are disgusted with it.”

And Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a longtime Trump ally, said that Americans wouldn’t condone the former president being convicted in court.

“The American people are not going to stand for that,” he told HuffPost. “All heck would break loose if that would happen.”

However, for Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, a prominent Trump critic, the former president’s continued hold over the party remains difficult to comprehend.

“I think a lot of people in this country are out of touch with reality and will accept anything Donald Trump tells them,” Romney told CNN last week, referring to GOP voters who refuse to believe that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. “There’s a lot of things about today’s electorate that I have a hard time understanding.”