The exception was Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor clinging to the margins of the race as a bastion of old-guard Republicanism. He called for Mr. Trump to end his campaign.
Most Republicans, conservative commentators and Trump allies ratcheted up pressure immediately to close ranks behind a former president facing charges that emanated from a special counsel appointed by a Justice Department that reports to President Biden. “PEAK WITCH HUNT,” blared the banner headline on Breitbart. A pro-Trump super PAC circulated supportive statements from more than 50 elected officials and conservative figures within four hours of Mr. Trump’s announcing his own indictment.
“This will only cause a firestorm of support,” Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist who hosts the streaming “War Room” program that is popular with the party’s right-wing base, wrote in a text message. “Rivals would be wise to ‘heave-to.’”
Mr. Trump raised $4 million in the first 24 hours after his last indictment. His campaign sent out its first emailed plea for cash less than 30 minutes after publicizing this one.
There are longer-term questions about the political fallout from the indictment, which adds yet another piece of baggage for a now twice-impeached and twice-indicted former president. Then there is the issue of actual legal jeopardy: The specific charges include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and a conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Yet on Fox News, the cable channel that serves as the information circulatory system for millions of Republican primary voters, the coverage on Thursday was almost universally aghast at the seven federal counts Mr. Trump is facing, even if the details have not been made public yet. The host Mark Levin called “June 8th, the day of insurrection, not January 6th.” Breaking-news banners and repeated segments trumpeted Democratic apostasies and scandals, from Hillary Clinton to President Biden, that did not result in prosecution.
Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host, goaded Mr. Trump’s 2024 rivals to travel in solidarity to Florida, where Mr. Trump said he had been summoned to a federal courthouse next week: “Every single Republican nominee should be down in Miami on Tuesday night — standing behind — standing for justice in the country, saying ‘I may be running for president’ — Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, whoever, Ron DeSantis — ‘but this is injustice.’”
