Trump probes cast shadow on midterms, but control still up for grabs

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Kurtz: New Trump headache: Immunity for Enquirer publisher

'MediaBuzz' host Howard Kurtz weighs in on the news that National Enquirer publisher and friend to President Trump has been granted immunity in the Michael Cohen case.

So how much does all this sound and fury affect the midterms?

Ordinarily, the conviction of a president's former campaign chairman and guilty pleas by his ex-national security adviser and former personal lawyer—who accused said president of directing one of his crimes—would detonate like a neutron bomb.

But as with all matters involving President Trump, the normal rules may not apply and what happens in November is anything but clear.

It's not hard to imagine a blue wave developing that would carry Democrats to control of the House. It's also not that hard to imagine that Trump’s Teflon, which has remained undented by so many past crises, enables the GOP to hang on to control. The president's grip on his base seems as strong as ever, although ambivalent Republicans could always opt to stay home.

The Michael Cohen plea, and his testimony that Trump directed him to arrange hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, has dramatically changed the political conversation.

The same goes for the Wall Street Journal revealing that Trump pal David Pecker, the CEO of American Media who runs the National Enquirer, has spoken with prosecutors under a grant of immunity. That could unravel what happened when Trump and Cohen were trying to buy the rights to McDougal’s story, which the tabloid had bought and buried for $150,000 toward the end of the 2016 campaign.

Before Tuesday, the White House and its allies had good success in keeping the focus on the lack of evidence of Russian collusion emerging in Robert Mueller’s probe. But that is changing.

Trump, for his part, told Fox's Ainsley Earhardt that he only learned of the payments "later on," which contradicts not just Cohen's version but one of his tapes. The president also said this:

"Almost everybody that runs for office has campaign violations. But what Michael Cohen pled to weren't even campaign related. They weren't crimes ...

"You know, campaign violations are considered not a big deal, frankly. But if somebody defrauded a bank and he's going to get 10 years in jail or 20 years in jail but if you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you'll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made. In all fairness to him, most people are going to do that."

While pundits and legal scholars debate that view, how much does all the swampiness break through to actual voters?

Both parties are struggling with ways to deal with the shadow cast by the Trump-related investigations, especially for their most vulnerable members.

The New York Times reports: "Senior Republican Party leaders began urging their most imperiled incumbents on Wednesday to speak out about the wrongdoing surrounding President Trump, with Representative Tom Cole, a former House Republican campaign chairman, warning, 'Where there’s smoke, and there's a lot of smoke, there may well be fire.'"

The Washington Post: "A day after President Trump's former lawyer implicated him in directing a crime, Democratic leaders sharpened their election-year attack on the GOP as the party of corruption. But in an effort to keep the electoral focus on bread-and-butter issues, they largely steered clear of any discussion of impeachment.

"Party leaders encouraged candidates and elected members to talk instead about demanding protection for the ongoing Justice Department investigations of Trump and his allies, offering a clear sign that they feel confident that grass-roots energy against Trump will show up at the polls without the need for a divisive rallying cry from the stump."

Politico goes with this headline: "'A New Cherry on Top': Trump Scandal Fallout Hangs Over Midterms."

But the actual story is anticlimactic:

"However momentous, even the conviction of Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, a guilty plea involving hush money by his personal lawyer and the indictment of a key congressional ally wasn’t enough to dramatically alter the trajectory of the midterm elections."

The truth is that no one really knows how this is going to play out.

The situation is somewhat reminiscent of 1998, when some Democrats distanced themselves from Bill Clinton as he was in the process of being impeached, but the party won five seats in the House because Newt Gingrich’s GOP was seen as overreaching.

The situation is very different because Clinton had sex with a former intern in the White House, while Trump’s alleged encounters took place more than a decade ago, although the hush money was paid during the last campaign.

The situation is also very different because Trump has an almost iron grip on most of his party, who view the investigations and media coverage of the president as unfair.

The question this fall will ultimately be whether a majority of voters want to put a check on the Trump presidency or, despite the controversies and prosecutions, leave him in full control of Washington.