He also seems to get away with one crime after the other by doing them brazenly in the open. It is almost as if the voters or his followers don't think it can be that bad because after all he is admitting it openly on camera.
The mindset is like this: you're an unpopular kid that feels bullied, and some bigger kid starts defending you. You aren't going to question the quality of his character.
Right-wing populism seems to always be like this. They make people who feel under siege (wounded national pride, whatever) feel safer and feel respected. That improvement in feeling swamps everything else.
But the thing is, it is high risk, and this is why others are unwilling to be as shameless. You risk being a social Pariah. The one thing that seems to have eluded Trump his whole life is genuine acceptance. Even the Republican party now, it really feels like people see him as a tool more than a person. He will go down in history, but for Trumpism, not for being Trump. He'll never been see as being loved for his person the way someone like Reagan might (to a degree, I don't know that presidents can ever be truly seen as a person more than as a movement).