Two things can be true at the same time. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) will no doubt find himself in hot water for expressing his opinion about the Republican primary race. Cornyn said it is time to move past Trump in 2024. He also said that the criminal prosecution of the documents found at Mar-a-Lago is political.

The only-Trumpers will not like his words, but he is right, and many Texas Republicans think the same. We can thank him for his successful policies and legislation during his term in office, especially his focus with Mitch McConnell to push through as many nominations of conservative judges as possible. And, at the same time, we can be ready to move on to a different candidate. The interview with Bret Baier on Fox Monday night was just one more example of the need to nominate a candidate who will defeat Joe Biden, or whoever the Democrat nominee is in 2024. The man is still consumed with bitterness over his loss in 2020. He continues to turn a basic question like how he plans to win over independents and suburban women voters, after losing both demographics in 2020, and instead of answering with solid ideas, he launched into a diatribe that he won the 2020 election by a big margin over Biden. The same old, same old. It’s the very thing that independents are fed up with. I’ve said it many times and I’ll continue to say it – elections are about the future, not the past. Voters are not interested in voting for Trump so that he can retaliate in 2024, as he has said he will do. They want to hear what he will do if re-elected as far as their own lives go.

So, I expect the only-Trumpers in Texas will be angry that Cornyn spoke honestly about moving on. Them’s the breaks. He can handle it. The fact is that Trump’s support in Texas has waned, as it has in other red states. Yes, he is still the clear favorite in polls but that also plays in to primary voters being outraged at the blatant politicization of the DOJ when it comes to prosecuting Donald Trump.

His approach reflects the tricky path leading Senate Republicans must navigate as they try to push Trump aside without enraging a party base filled with his ardent supporters.

In an interview at the Capitol last week, Cornyn was pressed on the potentially competing positions: that it’s time for the Republican party to move on from Trump and that the charges against him are the result of a biased Department of Justice.

“You don’t think both can be true?” Cornyn responded.

Cornyn became one of the most prominent Republicans last month when he spoke about Trump’s inability to appeal to voters outside his core base voters or even his desire to try to do so. He is more calm and measured than the junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. At last count, 11 senators have announced their endorsement of Trump Ted Cruz is not on that list. He may end up doing so but not as of yet.

After the indictment came down and Trump appeared in federal court in Miami, Cornyn wasn’t bashful about speaking out about the political bias of the Biden Department of Justice.

And yet Cornyn took to conservative talk radio the next day deploying common GOP talking points that Trump has been unfairly targeted. He told Hugh Hewitt that as president Trump was “under attack” by then-FBI director James Comey and the Justice Department and also serving under the shadow of a special counsel.

“He lived through … two different impeachment trials in the United States Senate, and now this,” Cornyn said of the recent indictment. “And then President Biden and Hillary Clinton and others seem to get off scot-free. That’s very troubling, I think, to a lot of people.”

The important thing is for Republicans to unify after the primary is over and a nominee has been chosen. We aren’t particularly good at that and too many Republicans will stay home instead of vote for the winning candidate. Democrats don’t do that, as they proved with Biden’s election. The same will be true in 2024. Democrats don’t want him to run for re-election but they say they will vote for him.