ORLANDO, Florida. Speaker Kevin McCarthy arrived this week at an upscale resort here, wanting to use the Republican retreat to advance the party’s political agenda and achievements so far, working on paper on units that almost turned down his job offer, and talking about what anything but the former president. Donald J Trump.

“I’m always optimistic,” Sunny Mr. McCarthy, dressed in a pair of trendy sneakers, jeans and a zip-up vest, told reporters of the prospects for settling debt ceiling talks without an economy-destroying default. “I spent 15 rounds to get the dynamics!”

But soon Mr. Trump came to dominate the process. The former president was expected to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, and Republicans in the House of Representatives rallied around him. They slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg as a pawn of George Soros, the longtime scarecrow of the right, and promised to launch a remarkable Congressional investigation into his active criminal investigation.

It was the third year in a row that Mr. Trump has effectively taken over the House Republican annual caucus, highlighting how central the former president continues to be to his party’s existence. Years after leaving office, Mr. Trump is still here, erasing attempts to talk about any Republican agenda that does not concern him and making it almost impossible for the Republican Party in the House of Representatives to define itself as anything other than its frontline advocates.

That was two years ago when Republicans in the House of Representatives headed to Florida, desperate to talk about anything but Trump, who had been impeached just weeks earlier for instigating a bloody riot in the Capitol.

Instead, Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, then No. 1.3 Republican, made several statements strongly rejecting Trump, and the subtext of the retreat was the anger of her party colleagues over her refusal to remain silent about the former president.

“If you’re sitting here on a politics retreat focused on America’s future transformation in the next century and talking about something else, you’re not being productive,” Mr. McCarthy told the news. conferences that year. A few weeks later, Ms. Cheney was quickly removed from her leadership position.

That was true again last year, when the annual meeting unfolded just weeks before the start of House hearings on the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Republicans carefully avoided the topic, seeking to demonstrate their unity by planning to regain a majority in the House of Representatives and predicting a red wave. They barely mentioned Mr. Trump’s name and were happy with it. Miss Cheney was not present. They were happy about that too.

Now Ms. Cheney no longer serves in Congress. Mr McCarthy became Speaker of the House of Representatives. Issues of election denial and Mr. Trump’s responsibility for the January 6 attack remain in the rear-view mirror for most Republican lawmakers, who prefer to talk about looming financial battles on Capitol Hill and the “Bill of Parents’ Rights” they plan to introduce in the coming years. days, which may limit the rights of transgender students.

At his press conference on Sunday at the hotel’s Citrus Garden, with guests roaming in the background in sportswear and bathrobes, Mr. McCarthy kicked off the conversation by talking about his early steps to lift pandemic precautions at the Capitol. including ending proxy voting, and set up a special committee to investigate China.

He appeared to be a particularly proud camaraderie, which he said was forged with Representative Hakim Jeffreys, a New York Democrat and minority leader. He stressed that he went out of his way to treat his colleague the way he would like to be treated by Speaker Nancy Pelosi when he was Minority Leader. Several times he quoted economist Milton Friedman, the godfather of libertarian economic policy, indicating that the speech he scheduled for the three-day retreat was more idea-driven.

“There is no need for everything to be partisan,” Mr. McCarthy said.

Why didn’t he invite two prominent Republicans from Florida, Mr. Trump or the governor? Ron DeSantis, join the band?

“These are thematic retreats,” he explained. “I don’t bring a lot of people to talk to us.”

Mr. McCarthy has carefully avoided questions about whether he plans to support Mr. Trump, whom he credits with helping him cross the finish line in his bid to become speaker. But over the weekend, he tweeted a defiant tweet criticizing Mr. Bragg’s investigation, and when the retreat began, he authorized three of his committee chairs to intervene in the ongoing investigation, demanding that the prosecutor provide reports, documents and testimony.

If Mr. McCarthy hoped to use the annual retreat to highlight issues such as the economy, the border, and the banking crisis, those plans were once again overshadowed by his relationship with Mr. Trump.

This is a position that he and his conference have repeatedly chosen.

“There is a myth that Republicans in Washington want to ‘get away’ from Trump,” said Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist and former GOP House oversight adviser. “They are not hostages; they are volunteers. These retreats have become a futile exercise for House Republicans because they end up ignoring their own political interests, doubling down on the underdog, and ultimately losing the election.”

Ohio State Representative Jim Jordan, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who was supposed to brief reporters on immigration and “securing America’s frontiers,” was instead questioned about his unusual letter demanding documents and testimony from Mr. Bragg, whom he accused of ” unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial powers.”

Mr. Jordan noted that the previous Manhattan district attorney did not file a case against Mr. Trump.

“And then what happened? President Trump announces he is running for re-election, and shazam! “Now we’re going to get into it,” Mr. Jordan said.

Despite Mr. Trump instigating the attack on the Capitol and trying to block a peaceful transfer of power to his successor, Mr. McCarthy has kept him close, even visiting him in Mar-a-Lago after the attack in an attempt to smooth over any differences and reach out to him. for help in the midterm elections.

However, Mr. McCarthy said Monday that one of the things he values ​​most about the United States is the rule of law.

“As a leader, as the speaker of the House of Representatives, if this shoe was on the other foot, I hope I would do the same – stand up and say that this is wrong,” he said. “I want to heal the nation.”

Other Republicans took the expected indictment as an opportune moment to proudly support the former president.

“I support President Trump,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who was loyal to both Trump and DeSantis until Monday. Explaining her decision to support Mr. Trump now, Ms. Luna said Mr. Bragg was “trying to fabricate charges against Trump beyond the statute of limitations” and that “this is unheard of and Americans need to see this.” what it is: abuse of power and fascist abuse of the justice system.”

Rep. Eliza Stefanik, a Republican from New York, said she spoke with Trump Monday morning explaining to him the actions being taken by House investigative committees against Bragg.

“I think you will see his polls go up,” she predicted. “It only strengthens President Trump in moving forward.”

Many people think that I make political predictions, but this is not entirely true. Instead, I try to organize history, data, polls, reports, and more to help understand the political landscape. It’s usually one of those old, yellowish, distorted maps from the Age of Discovery. It offers only a rough idea of ​​what lies ahead.

This week we are approaching uncharted waters. The leader of the major party presidential nomination could soon face charges. This is a blurry corner of the map where we can only draw fantastic sea creatures. We know that this part of the world is probably the ocean, but we don’t know anything else. We are sure it is dangerous.

We’ve learned a few things from Donald J. Trump’s previous expeditions into rough, distant waters. He has already survived numerous federal investigations, two impeachment trials, and countless predictions of his political demise. Every drunken sailor in the pub knows he’s not to be discounted. But if Mr. Trump has defied everything before, he hasn’t always come back unscathed. It’s unwise to tempt fate too many times.

Here is the outline of the map as we approach a possible charge:

• The FBI’s search of Mr. Trump’s property in August for classified records is probably the best precedent. Although not an indictment, it was a court decision that there were probable grounds for believing that he had committed a crime. The allegation was more serious than the Stormy Daniels case because it had potential national security implications. But the search did not have a noticeable effect on Trump’s position among the Republicans. Conservatives surrounded the vans and argued that the search for the former president was an unfair act of party politics. This did not affect his position in the polls. In our Times/Siena last vote summer and in the fall, the Republican primary race remained largely unchanged after the FBI raid.

• Blame is still uncharted territory, so it pays to be careful with any potential repercussions. A new legal line will be crossed, even if this story is already playing out in the same way as the FBI raid.

• Seriously though, this accusation is unlikely to hurt Mr. Trump’s base of support.. The public already knows about Miss Daniels. His supporters have long decided they don’t particularly care about the facts behind the case. The illegal cover-up of a private file is more like accusing Bill Clinton of perjury than Richard Nixon’s tapes.

• The upside for Mr. Trump seems rather limited. Yes, Mr. Trump may indeed reap short-term gains if Republicans stand up for him. However, it is too much to claim that many Republicans who Not Supporting him today for the nomination would be much more likely to support him after the indictment. It certainly could energize his base, but the indictment would reinforce some of the reasons other Republicans don’t want to support him at all. It’s not that Trump became a ruthless force after the FBI ransacked Mar-a-Lago.

• There is no reason to assume that Mr. Trump is invulnerable. He is weaker than ever, including during an FBI raid.. His defeat in the 2020 presidential election, the aftermath of January 6, and the 2022 midterm elections have clearly taken their toll on his reputation. After the midterm elections, his support in the primary dropped to the 30s. Despite modest growth over the past two months, he is still well into his 40s. Those numbers make him a leader in the primaries, but not a juggernaut. His position is the same as that of Hillary Clinton in 2008 – it seemed possible that she could lose, and eventually she did. Mr. Trump is not invincible; his base leaves him without a win.

• Trump’s Weakness Increases Fall Risks for his candidacy, even if it ends up just like an FBI raid.

  It’s one thing to rally your base, even at the risk of reinforcing the opposition when you’ve won 55% of the vote. That’s enough to win the primary. It’s a completely different matter if you have 35 percent. This may not be enough to win, and building a case against you is a risky game. This may block your path to victory.

  Today, Mr Trump is 35 to 55 percent. He was in his 30s two months ago and now enjoys the support of a group of voters who seem quite ready to go in a different direction under slightly different circumstances. There could be far more downsides for Mr. Trump than upsides. A critical section of Republicans may decide they are ready to move on.

The longer term is murky. It’s easy enough to win back the next few weeks, but an indictment will bring the specter of a trial and even the possibility of a conviction and jail time. This creates the possibility that Mr. Trump may behave in unpredictable ways, with uncertain and risky political consequences, such as protest rallying and the possibility of violence. And Mr. Trump faces other legal risks, including those that could be more politically dangerous. the government of Florida’s Ron DeSantis, who is expected to be his primary primary adversary, can successfully attack him in a way he couldn’t today.

These opportunities lie even further off the edge of our map. If convicted, it could mean complete disappearance from the map.