Tonight, the remaining three Republican candidates for president – Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich – took the stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a CNN-run town hall. The real star of the night, however, might have been a man who wasn’t even physically on the stage – Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager for Donald Trump.

Earlier in the day, Lewandowski was charged with the battery of Michelle Fields, a former Breitbart News reporter, at a Trump event in Florida earlier in March. Lewandowski has vigorously denied that an assault took place, at one point apparently claiming that he never touched Fields and had never even met her before. Despite the charges, and footage that appears to show Lewandowski grabbing her arm, Trump has stood behind his campaign manager.

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The Lewandowski assault charges dominated cable news coverage, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the very first question Anderson Cooper asked Ted Cruz wasn’t about the endorsement he received from Wisconsin governor Scott Walker – it was about Lewandowski. In response to the question about whether or not Cruz would ask Lewandowski to resign in light of the charges, the Texas senator replied, “of course, it’s not complicated – members of the campaign shouldn’t be assaulting the press”.

Cruz went further, clearly sensing an opportunity in his effort to derail Trump, echoing a statement from his campaign earlier in the day, saying that Lewandowski’s behavior was “consistent with a pattern of the [Trump] campaign ... It’s been insults, personal attacks, and going to the gutter.”

It wasn’t just Ted Cruz who started off with a question about Lewandowski – Kasich was asked whether he would fire him. While Kasich said he hadn’t seen the video, he said he would “absolutely” fire him.

Trump then got the same first question as Cruz and Kasich.

Asked whether his campaign manager would continue, Trump emphatically stated, “yes, he will, I looked at the tape”.

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Trump is clearly making a strategic gamble when it comes to his campaign manager, doubling down on his support for Lewandowski despite the overwhelming negative reaction from the mainstream media and from many conservative thought leaders.

Cooper didn’t let Trump off the hook easily, saying that Lewandowski had claimed at one point that he never touched her, but that the tape appeared to show he did. So did his campaign manager mislead him? Trump’s response: “No.”

Trump was clearly prepared for the Lewandowski line of questioning. The usually off-the-cuff candidate pulled papers out of his suit pocket with the exact quote that Fields gave after the alleged assault.

Trump mockingly read the Fields’ words, doing his best to make her comments seem melodramatic and then claiming that she had grabbed him and that Lewandowski was only separating her from him.

When Anderson asked Trump whether his opponents were right that this incident said something about Trump’s leadership, the Republican frontrunner defended his decision to keep Lewandowski: “I am a loyal person ... it would be so easy just to terminate him, to say ‘you’re fired’ ... I stick up for people ... She had a pen in her hand, which could have been a knife ... I don’t want to ruin this man’s life.”

The real question is whether any of this will actually matter – will it move the needle with voters? In any other year, a presidential candidate’s decision to stand behind a male campaign manager accused of assaulting a female reporter would be considered a political kiss of death. This year, however, Donald Trump has defied and, indeed, rewritten the rules.

Trump has survived – even thrived – after his supposedly damaging comments about immigrants, POWs, women, disabled reporters, and Muslims. Will this be any different? For the committed Trump supporters, who make up roughly 40-45% of the GOP electorate, the answer is probably no.

While it won’t hurt Trump among his incredibly devoted base, it will serve to further galvanize the anti-Trump forces – making it even less likely that the “never Trump” crowd could be wooed back into the GOP tent if he is the nominee.

When it comes to Donald Trump, the cake is baked, and almost everything that happens – negative or positive – only serves to reinforce existing perceptions of the candidates. It is hard to imagine that changing.