Asa Hutchinson says Trump is buoyed by federal investigations: ‘He’s played the victim’

Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson argues Donald Trump’s legal woes are boosting the former president’s bid for the GOP’s presidential nomination.

“You look back to the true numbers, which is after the last midterm elections. His numbers were down. He was responsible for a lot of the failure … in a number of different states,” Mr. Hutchinson, an anti-Trump Republican, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Since then, his numbers have gone up because he’s played the victim.”

Polls show Mr. Trump maintains a commanding double-digit lead among GOP primary voters over his likely opponents, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In addition to felony charges in New York stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation into hush-money payments to women before the 2016 election to shield extramarital affairs, Mr. Trump faces possible criminal charges from probes into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and mishandling classified documents after leaving office.

The legal troubles have done anything but hurt Mr. Trump’s odds, Mr. Hutchinson said.   

“People believe he’s been picked on because of some prosecutions,” he said. “I joke, in some ways, that his campaign manager is Alvin Bragg of New York City. That indictment caused those numbers to go up because they don’t believe they’re fair.”