Here’s proof that the arrests have changed everything in Donald Trump’s Russia scandal
Ten days ago, Special Counsel Robert Mueller began making his first public high profile arrests in Donald Trump’s Russia scandal. Since that time all eyes have been on the Trump-Russia players, to see who might be next to get arrested, cut a deal, or slip up and admit something incriminating. In the background, an arguably more important aspect of the scandal has been playing out: the court of public opinion. Now we have definitive answers on how that battle is playing out, and it’s devastating news for Trump.
As the arrests were getting underway, Palmer Report pointed out that this would cause a greater number of Americans to conclude that the Trump-Russia scandal is real. Plenty of average Americans have spent the past year hearing conflicting claims about the scandal from both sides, and not knowing what to believe. But when the highest ranking member of Donald Trump’s campaign was arrested, for a charge like “conspiracy against the United States” no less, and he wasn’t even the only one arrested, it was bound to have an immediate impact on the public’s view of the scandal – and it has.
New polling from CNN reveals that the vast majority of Americans now believe Donald Trump had significant help from Russia when it came to getting elected, and the vast majority also believe that Trump knew about it during the election. Trump only seems to care what his small and shrinking base thinks about him, but the Republican Party itself doesn’t have that luxury. The GOP just got wiped out across the country in Tuesday’s elections, and if Trump is still in office next year, the GOP will get swept out of Congress altogether in the midterms.
Moreover, the Republican leadership knows it. Republicans in Congress have spent every day this year waking up and checking Donald Trump’s approval rating numbers before deciding how to approach Trump on any given day. They already know he’s a ticking time bomb. Tuesday was a painful reminder for them. These new poll numbers are telling Republicans that they have little choice but to get rid of Trump before he takes them down too.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report