GEOFF BENNETT: Welcome to the "NewsHour."

Former President Donald Trump is in Miami tonight ahead of an initial court appearance tomorrow on a raft of federal criminal charges.

All of them relate to his handling of classified documents after he left office.

AMNA NAWAZ: Mr. Trump and his supporters have lambasted the indictment and the Biden Justice Department.

That has officials in Miami bracing for potential trouble at the federal courthouse.

Lisa Desjardins reports.

LISA DESJARDINS: In Miami today, security tape is going up and words of precaution are going out ahead of tomorrow's court appearance by former President Donald Trump.

Mayor Francis Suarez and teams said they are ready for up to 50,000 protesters.

FRANCIS SUAREZ (R), Mayor of Miami, Florida: We hope tomorrow will be peaceful.

We encourage people to be peaceful in them demonstrating how they're -- how they feel.

And we are going to have the adequate forces necessary to ensure that.

LISA DESJARDINS: A thousand miles away, Mr. Trump began his journey to court, boarding a plane in New Jersey en route to Florida.

There, he will face 37 counts on charges he held onto hundreds of classified documents, including top military secrets, after leaving the White House, and that he resisted requests and a subpoena to hand them over.

Friday's detailed indictment included photos of boxes sprawled throughout his Mar-a-Lago home, including in a bathroom, on a ballroom stage, and spilled over a storage room floor.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States: This is the final battle.

LISA DESJARDINS: This after a weekend of not just denying and blasting the charges, but, in an interview, Trump called for supporters to go to Miami and peacefully protest.

In rallies in North Carolina and Georgia, he urged resolve.

DONALD TRUMP: We don't fold.

We don't fold our tent and go home.

And, again, we want to drain the swamp.

And I'm the only one that's going to do it.

Nobody else is going to do it.

We know the competition.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: We know it.

Anyone else will be absolutely ripped to shreds.

These are sick, sick, sinister people.

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): This is the most political thing I have ever seen.

LISA DESJARDINS: His supporters and some of his Republican presidential rivals have kept up a drumbeat in Mr. Trump's defense, with some, like key rival Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, choosing not to proclaim Trump innocent, so much as to denounce the Justice Department as corrupt.

GOV.

RON DESANTIS (R-FL), Presidential Candidate: Our founding fathers would have absolutely predicted the weaponization that we have seen with these agencies, particularly justice and FBI, because, when you don't have constitutional accountability, human nature is such that they will abuse their power.

LISA DESJARDINS: But new today, Trump's U.N.

Ambassador Nikki Haley told FOX News that, while she thinks the DOJ has lost all credibility, now, after looking at the details here: NIKKI HALEY (R), Presidential Candidate: If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security.

LISA DESJARDINS: Sunday, Mr. Trump's own attorney general also rang in on the charges.

WILLIAM BARR, Former U.S. Attorney General: If even half of it is true, then he's toast.

LISA DESJARDINS: Former Justice Department head Bill Barr told FOX News Trump had no right to keep such sensitive records.

WILLIAM BARR: I defend the president on Russiagate.

I stood up and called out Alvin Bragg's politicized hit job.

This is simply not true.

This -- this particular episode of trying to retrieve those documents, the government acted responsibly, and it was Donald J. Trump who acted irresponsibly.

LISA DESJARDINS: But that's not how most Republican voters see it.

A CBS News poll released yesterday found that 76 percent of likely primary voters said they thought Mr. Trump's indictment was only politically motivated.

At the White House, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre again declined to respond to the indictment.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, White House Press Secretary: This is a president that respects the rule of law.

This is the president that wants to make sure and has proven that to be in his actions to make sure that the Department of Justice is truly independent, and just not going to speak to the case at all or comment on the case.

LISA DESJARDINS: The attention tomorrow is centers around the federal courthouse in Miami and the former president's court date, when his attorneys have said he will plead not guilty.

AMNA NAWAZ: And Lisa joins us now with more about how Republicans are reacting to the indictment.

Lisa, good to see you.

LISA DESJARDINS: Good to see you.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, tell us, what have we been seeing in the days since the indictment?

LISA DESJARDINS: In the first day since we learned the news of the indictment, but before we actually saw the details, there was a torrent of Republican response, especially from his supporters in Congress.

I want to go through some of the themes that we have heard from Republicans about this indictment.

First of all, you have many who are pushing back at the Department of Justice.

Like, Representative Mike Collins of Georgia, for example, tweeted out this.

He wanted to abolish, he said, the corrupt FBI and Justice Department.

That was sort of on one end of the criticism of DOJ.

But Representative Lisa McClain of Michigan -- she's a member of House leadership -- wrote that DOJ has become nothing more than a political weapon.

There are others who -- we have seen Republicans say this is hypocritical for the Biden administration and even say it's a double standard.

For example, Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, he wrote: "There's a two-tiered justice system on full display.

The Biden DOJ buries investigations."

Here, he goes into the Biden family.

Now, this is something that's going on separately in the House, where some House lawmakers were able to see an FBI report that accuses the Biden family of some bribery.

It is unsubstantiated.

There was not an investigation.

But the Republicans are raising that as an example of a double standard.

But we know that the FBI is also investigating Biden in terms of documents, but that that's ongoing right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, this is what we have been seeing publicly in terms of people speaking out.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: You have also been tracking who we haven't heard anything from.

What stands out to you about that?

LISA DESJARDINS: This is really notable.

Many Republican sources that I have talked to are not saying on the record what they're telling me privately, that they were looking at the indictment, and we saw clearly a change after the indictment come out -- came out.

Far fewer Republicans have been responding at all.

Now, let's talk about who, in particular, has not said anything publicly.

How about the top Republican in the Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell?

He had an opportunity to speak on the floor today, did not talk about the indictment at all.

We know he's been an opponent of President Trump in some ways in the past.

But some other really significant ones with no public statement yet, look at this.

At the top row, Richard Hudson, he is a member of House leadership, no statement yet.

Mike Turner, he is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

So these are some important Republicans you see with no statement yet.

AMNA NAWAZ: Lisa, when you talk to folks, whether they're telling you privately or publicly, is there a sense of how Republicans see this?

Is something that will help them or hurt them?

LISA DESJARDINS: This remains a divided party.

I just talked to a strategist who said they were hoping that this could be the thing that pushes President Trump out of their party.

They're not sure that this is enough to really derail his supporters.

On the other hand, they think that, once we get into a general election, this is something that could hurt him in the fall.

Right now, it does seem this is helping former President Trump with fund-raising, at least, and with sort of energizing some of his supporters.

AMNA NAWAZ: Lisa Desjardins covering all of this for us.

And, of course, we will see what happens after the arraignment tomorrow as well.

LISA DESJARDINS: That's right.

AMNA NAWAZ: Good to see you Lisa.

Thank you.

LISA DESJARDINS: You too.