ATLANTA ― The 2024 Republican presidential race on Friday came to the city where frontrunner Donald Trump was just indicted on racketeering and fraud charges based on his coup attempt ― and participants did their best to avoid talking about it.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott did not mention Trump during his 45-minute question and answer session on stage with radio talk show host Erick Erickson. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told the audience of 500 that he hoped Trump would show up at the first GOP debate next week in Milwaukee but had nothing to say about the charges that could put Trump in prison for decades.
And former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, meanwhile, said Republicans need to put Trump’s “negativity” in the past and pick a candidate who can win, but did not detail anything particularly negative about him.
By next Friday, Trump will have to turn himself in to be fingerprinted and photographed at the Fulton County Jail just eight miles from the Grand Hyatt in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood hosting the conference of conservative listeners of Erickson’s radio show.
Erickson explained that he purposely avoided asking about Trump’s criminal indictments because he wanted to give the other candidates the opportunity to present their own visions. He did joke, though, that Trump’s non-appearance probably would work out for the best for him, given that he has not yet been arraigned and risks arrest if he sets foot in the state: “Under Georgia law, you know what the DA would want to do.”
Indeed, the harshest critique of Trump from the stage came from someone who is not running for president in 2024, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who became Trump’s No. 1 target during last year’s midterm elections for refusing to help overturn Trump’s 2020 loss in the state.
Kemp said he would not discuss the Fulton County indictment because he is likely to be a prosecution witness at the trial, but he made it clear that backing Trump as the nominee would guarantee that the 2024 election would be all about his continued lies regarding the 2020 election and the resulting criminal cases.
“It’s insanity that we’re having to deal with this,” he said. “It should be such an easy path for us to win the White House back.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, although he did not speak of Trump’s various criminal prosecutions from the stage, did during an exchange with reporters afterward tacitly support the Georgia charges against Trump, saying: “No one’s above the law.”
This weekend’s “Gathering” conference reprises the one Erickson hosted eight years ago when he disinvited Trump from the event after he attacked former Fox News host Megyn Kelly ― “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her .. whatever” ― after she asked him a question about his treatment of women at the first GOP debate of that election cycle.
At that event, a large percentage of attendees, mostly evangelical Christian conservatives, were open to Trump if not outright supporting him because, despite his behavior and language, they believed he would fight for them. Eight years later, the audience largely believes the party needs to move past Trump.
“And many of them are the same people,” Erickson said.
He added that he did not invite Trump to attend, knowing that Trump was refusing to go to multi-candidate events, but did invite every other Republican who had either declared or who he knew was likely to declare their candidacy when he was setting the agenda several months ago.
Trump’s latest indictment in Georgia, his fourth, brings the total number of felony counts he faces to 91. The Fulton County charges include racketeering and conspiracy to commit forgery, among other crimes, while a federal indictment last month also charges him for his actions related to his Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt. A second federal indictment includes 40 felonies for his refusal to turn over top secret documents he was keeping at his Florida country club, while a New York state indictment accuses him of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star in the days leading up to the 2016 election.