Twenty-four hours after one of the most damaging days for Donald Trump’s presidency, the Republican wall of support around him shows no signs of crumbling.

Though some GOP senators expressed discomfort with the the plea deal reached by Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and the guilty verdict rendered on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, there has been no seismic shift in the GOP after a bombshell Tuesday. Some Republicans attacked Cohen as not credible, some said Manafort’s conviction has nothing to do with Trump and others still said the matter doesn’t fall in their purview as senators.


Moreover, the president still enjoys strong support among most Republican elected officials, a significant achievement given the rising prospects that Senate Republicans could be the backstop against an impeachment trial in the Senate if Democrats win the House. If Trump faces impeachment next year, for now it seems that he can count on the support of the Senate GOP.

“I’m not sure why that would change my support for the president,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) of the past day’s events. “He was elected by the American people. Short of impeachment or death, he’s the president.”

Burr is overseeing the ongoing Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into Russia interference on the election, and he said on Tuesday his committee wants to speak to Cohen again. But there were no signs of the GOP Senate starting up new probes looking into Cohen’s statements on Tuesday implicating the president in payments made before the election to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels and ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal.

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Republicans seem to have built an alternate reality for themselves, where they tune out legal and political crises wracking the White House to concentrate on the nuts and bolts of government. Though their criticisms of Trump’s actions helped end the administration’s family separation policy just a few weeks ago, there is no such campaign among Republicans to publicly chastise or fret about Trump’s standing in the party following a series of criminal convictions of his former campaign aides.

“It is what it is,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). “I can’t make a difference on that. But I can make a difference on the farm bill.”

Asked if his own support for Trump had declined in the past day, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) replied: “No, not yet.”

“What happens here is, I’m looking for evidence of collusion. That would affect me,” said Graham, who is up for reelection in 2020. “Rather than say what would affect me, let me find out what [special counsel Robert] Mueller’s got. Then let me tell you.”

Senate GOP chairmen didn’t bring up Cohen or Manafort at a private meeting on Wednesday and the full Republican Caucus touched on the topics only briefly, according to senators. And the stalled bill to protect Mueller saw no new momentum either even as Trump attacks the probe on a near-daily basis. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said succinctly: “I don’t support it. It’s not necessary.”

“This is really a matter for the courts and not for Congress as far as I can tell,” Cornyn said of Cohen’s statements about Trump. “This is about other things that people have done that aren’t related to the presidential campaign or the Russia investigation.”

Even Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who helped shepherd the Mueller protection bill through his committee, said that “the bill isn’t really needed because I don’t think there’s any threat to Mueller.” Trump slammed the “Russian witch hunt” on Tuesday evening at a rally in West Virginia, just his latest attack on the probe that has brought down several Trump campaign officials.

“At this point, there’s not much you can say because we don’t know much. We just know only that he pleaded to the things he pleaded to. And at this point, anything else is speculation. So there’s not anything else I can say,” Grassley said of Cohen and Manafort.

“I haven’t heard any comments on collusion or any of the other things. I’ll have to wait and see what happens with Cohen but Manafort seems to be a Manafort problem,” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.).

Some of Trump’s few critics expressed more alarm than most. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said that “neither one of these felons should have been anywhere near the presidency.” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) highlighted that she never supported Trump, has not hesitated to criticize him and admitted the president faces rising political peril.

“Obviously, Michael Cohen’s assertion that the president directed him to pay this money is not good news for the president,” Collins said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Fox News ran a clip of an interview with Trump in which he admitted he knew of the hush money payment but clarified that he learned of it after the Cohen made the payment. But Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said it was already obvious to anyone following the case.

‘Did anybody even question that?” Corker said. He declined to say if the president should resign over the matter.

Corker is retiring and won’t face voters again and has been more free to speak his mind than most of the rest of his party. Most Republicans that may have to to run for reelection again were exceedingly cautious on Cohen’s assertion, tiptoeing around the matter and insisting they needed to learn more about the topic.

GOP lawmakers generally admit that the last 24 hours haven’t been good for the president -- but it was clear most of the GOP still has Trump’s back. For now, at least.

“It’s getting a little ugly,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the presumptive GOP whip next year. “Most of us need to work with the president where we can to move our agenda ... it’s definitely a fairly big sideshow.”

But, he added, “we have to let it play out.”