Monthly Archives: January 2021

The calls for Donald Trumps removal from office are intensifying, as some lawmakers blame the president for inciting the mob who stormed and vandalized the US Capitol.

That includes a small group of mostly moderate Republican leaders who have condemned Trump and demanded that he resign or be forced out, either by invoking the 25th Amendment or through impeachment proceedings.

The number of GOP voices remains tiny compared to the growing number of Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and soon-to-be Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who are calling for Trumps ouster.

On Monday, Democrats introduced an article of impeachment against the president, one count of incitement of insurrection. The House could vote as early as this week. Trump could very well be impeached a second time, but two-thirds of the Senate would still be needed to convict him before he could be removed from office and the Senate may not conclude the trial before Trumps term expires.

Most Republican senators have so far stayed silent or are opposed. Large swaths of the House GOP caucus stand resolutely behind Trump, and House Republicans blocked a measure on Monday demanding Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet remove Trump under the 25th Amendment.

Republicans, then, are largely closing ranks around the president. But the smattering of denouncements shows that at least some in the Republican Party want a future separate from Trump small though that group may be.

Below are the few Republicans currently in office who have so far demanded Trumps resignation or removal from office.

Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican whos retiring in 2022, became the second GOP senator to say Trump should step down. The best way for our country is for the president to resign and go away as soon as possible, he told Meet the Press on Sunday.

Toomey also said in an interview with Fox News this weekend that he believed the president had committed impeachable offenses, though he hesitated on whether impeachment proceedings and removing him from office was the best course. I dont know whats going to land on the Senate floor, if anything, he said.

Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski became the first Republican senator to demand that Trump leave office. She did not mention impeachment or other methods of removal, but she was unequivocal in her censure of the president.

I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage, Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News in a Friday interview.

He doesnt want to stay there, she added. He only wants to stay there for the title. He only wants to stay there for his ego. He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I dont think hes capable of doing a good thing.

Murkowski has a reputation as one of the more moderate Senate Republicans though she may not even call herself a Republican for much longer. She told the Anchorage Daily News that she might leave the party if it continues to organize itself around Trump. I will tell you, if the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me, she said. (Murkowski has since said that if she does leave the GOP, it wont mean shed ever become a Democrat.)

Vermonts Republican governor, who was just sworn in for his third term, was among the first prominent Republicans to demand Trump resign or be removed from office by his Cabinet, or by Congress.

Make no mistake, the President of the United States is responsible for this event, Scott wrote in a thread on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. President Trump has orchestrated a campaign to cause an insurrection that overturns the results of a free, fair and legal election.

Kinzinger also called on the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment, the first Republican member of Congress to do so.

All indications are that the president has become unmoored not just from his duty or even his oath but from reality itself, Kinzinger said in a video statement posted on Twitter. It is for this reason that I call for the Vice President and members of the Cabinet to ensure the next few weeks are safe for the American people and that we have a sane captain of the ship.

Kinzinger was among the first Republicans to recognize Biden as the rightful president-elect, and has tried to debunk election fraud conspiracies. He has criticized his congressional colleagues who had planned to object to the Electoral College results, calling them not serious people. Kinzinger did not specifically mention impeachment in his statement, though he told MSNBC he has not ruled out supporting such a move.

Marylands governor may be the most prominent GOP figure to demand Trumps removal. In a press conference Thursday afternoon, Hogan said there is no question that America could be better off if the president resigned or were removed from office.

After the press conference, Hogan wrote, It is clear to me that President Trump has abandoned his sacred oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Hogan, though a Republican, is not exactly an infrequent Trump critic, and hes broken with the president on his handling of the coronavirus and immigration. In 1974, Hogans father, a GOP congressman, was the first House Republican to support the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

Massachusettss Republican Gov. Charlie Baker another moderate GOPer whos clashed with the president also blamed Trump for the violence in Washington, DC, and for fomenting the chaos with his election fraud conspiracy theories. In a news conference Thursday, he said Pence should lead the transition.

Its 14 days, OK? Baker said, according to the Boston Globe. I think people should pursue whatever they believe will make it possible, in the most expeditious way possible, for the president to step down and the vice president to assume the powers of the office for the next 14 days so that an orderly transition can take place.

Still, the list of Republicans who have explicitly said Trump should go is still quite short.

Many though certainly not all Republican leaders have called out Trump for feeding these conspiracy theories to his supporters, and for using his platform at the rally Wednesday to radicalize the protesters present.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) did not directly call for Trumps removal, but in an interview with CBS This Morning last week, he signaled that he was open to impeachment proceedings.

The House, if they come together and have a process, I will definitively consider whatever articles they might move because as Ive told you, I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office, Sasse told CBS This Mornings Gayle King. He swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. He acted against that. What he did was wicked.

A handful of Cabinet officials have also resigned in protest, most notably Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary, and Betsy DeVos, the education secretary. Others considered resigning, including National Security Adviser Robert OBrien, though he was reportedly persuaded to stay on.

Condemnation came from former officials, including those who served under Trump. Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who resigned last month not long after he denied the presidents allegations of widespread voter fraud, said in a statement that orchestrating a mob to pressure Congress is inexcusable. Barr said, The presidents conduct yesterday was a betrayal of his office and supporters. John Kelly, former White House chief of staff and former homeland security secretary, said on CNN that he would, if still in the Cabinet, vote to remove Trump.

Some of these denouncements come a bit late, as many of Trumps Republican allies did little to stop or condemn Trump and his falsehoods about election fraud in weeks prior to the insurrection at the Capitol.

And so far, few Republicans with actual power to remove the president from office i.e., those in Congress or leading a Cabinet agency have said they would definitely do so. Pence is reportedly opposed to invoking the 25th Amendment, and many other lawmakers look like theyd rather move on, echoing the presidents statement Thursday night, where he recognized that a new administration would take over and tried to distance himself from the Capitol assault.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of Trumps biggest defenders in the Senate, said Friday that, as Trump stated, it is time to heal and move on.

If Speaker Pelosi pushes impeachment in the last days of the Trump presidency, it will do more harm than good, he said.

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The Republicans who want Trump to leave office now - Vox.com

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. In Washington, Republicans were dealing with a burgeoning crisis in their ranks, with high-profile resignations and bitter infighting over how to deal with an erratic and isolated president. But at the Republican National Committees winter meeting on Friday, most party members were operating in a parallel universe.

In a chandelier-adorned ballroom at the seaside Ritz-Carlton here, there was no mention of President Trumps disruption of the coronavirus relief package or his phone call to the Georgia secretary of state demanding that he help steal the election, both of which contributed to Republicans losing control of the Senate.

And while the R.N.C. chair, Ronna McDaniel, condemned the attack on the Capitol, neither she nor any other speaker so much as publicly hinted at Mr. Trumps role in inciting a mob assault on Americas seat of government.

Even as the president faces a possible second impeachment proceeding, this collective exercise in gaze aversion was not the most striking part of the meeting. More revealing was the reason for the silence from the stage: Party members, one after another, said in interviews that the president did not bear any blame for the violence at the Capitol and indicated that they wanted him to continue to play a leading role in the party.

I surely embrace President Trump, said Michele Fiore, the committeewoman from Nevada, where Republicans have lost two Senate races and the governorship since 2016. Ms. Fiore, who was sporting a Trump-emblazoned vest, said the president was absolutely a positive force in the party.

The fealty to Mr. Trump was made plain on Friday when the state chairs and the committeemen and women who make up the R.N.C.s governing board unanimously re-elected Ms. McDaniel, Mr. Trumps handpicked chair. They also reappointed her co-chair, Tommy Hicks, who was first appointed to his post because of his friendship with the presidents eldest son.

Mr. Trump is the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over the loss of the White House, the House and the Senate in a single term and will be the first since Andrew Johnson to boycott his successors inauguration. That hasnt yet fazed the Republican rank and file.

This room, theyre in denial, and thats on the record, Bill Palatucci, a committeeman from New Jersey, said during a break in the Friday session, acknowledging the damage done to the country and the Republican brand this week.

But Mr. Palatucci was a lonely voice of dissent, at least in public.

Privately, a group of Republican officials, mostly those from the pre-Trump establishment wing of the party, said that they were appalled by the presidents conduct and that Ms. McDaniel had been candid about the partys difficulties behind closed doors.

These Republicans predicted with more hope than confidence that once Mr. Trump was out of office, the ardor for him in the conservative base would cool.

Yet for now, the flames still burn.

I would love to see him go into states that have some House seats we can flip in 22, said Terry Lathan, the Alabama G.OP. chair, who said absolutely not when she was asked if Mr. Trump bore any blame for the attack on the Capitol.

When a committee member took an informal survey on whose closed-door speech on Thursday members had liked better, that of Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota or of Nikki R. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, the response was clear. The party officials preferred Ms. Noems, because she had not criticized Mr. Trump as Ms. Haley did in her remarks, a Republican familiar with the sampling said.

Earlier in the day on Thursday, when the president briefly called into a breakfast meeting, he was greeted by applause. And when the Missouri national committeeman, Gordon Kinne, said at the breakfast that he was a supporter of the president but had been upset by his comments about the violence at the Capitol, he was met with a generally frosty response, according to another committee member in the room.

The loyalty to Mr. Trump results in part from the turnover on the committee during his term. The presidents top political lieutenants intervened to install loyalists in state and local G.O.P. conventions ahead of 2020. The goal was to prevent any party rule changes that could have made it easier to mount a primary challenge against Mr. Trump, but the end result was to leave the committee heavy with Trump devotees.

The changes also accelerated a trend that pre-dated Mr. Trumps rise: the evolution of the committee from a body filled with canny political professionals and power brokers in their states to one dominated by dogmatic partisans well-marinated in Fox News and Facebook memes.

Perhaps more significant, the president has fostered a new wave of activism on the right and many longstanding G.O.P. leaders fear alienating these newcomers to party politics.

We cant exist without the people he brought to the party hes changed the direction of the party, said Paul Reynolds, the Republican committeeman from Alabama. Were a different party because of the people that came with him, and they make us a better party.

Reta Hamilton, a committeewoman from Arkansas, said Mr. Trump should play a leading part in the G.O.P. in the future for just that reason to bring his voters, she said.

Ms. Hamilton and other R.N.C. members also sought to rationalize questions about the damage to the Capitol and the images of Trump banners and Confederate flags littering the building.

What was your reaction to Black Lives Matter looting and robbing and killing people? she shot back brazenly before walking away.

Steve Scheffler, a committeeman from Iowa, was equally quick to invoke last summers at times destructive protests over racial justice and the news medias coverage of them.

Why doesnt the press condemn the violence that happened in Portland and Seattle? said Mr. Scheffler. Its a double standard.

Asked if he felt there was an equivalence between the left-wing protests of 2020 and the violent attempt to subvert the election this week, he said: Two wrongs dont make a right. Its all bad.

In her remarks to the committee, Ms. McDaniel, the niece of Senator Mitt Romney, thanked Mr. Trump for his faith in her and never directly acknowledged that Mr. Trump had been defeated, only referring to her frustration at losing critical elections.

As for the presidents own denial about his loss, she did not rebut the conspiracy theories he has pushed, and that the partys base has echoed.

Addressing the Republican grass roots, she vowed to work with state legislatures to make sure what we saw in this election never happens again.

Ms. McDaniel went on to criticize the effort by House Democrats to withdraw gender-specific words like wife and husband from the rule book governing the chamber.

The standing ovation she received was a reminder that disdain for the lefts perceived excesses is the most animating, and unifying, force on the right. This brand of oppositional politics could help paper over Republicans challenges when they run as the out-of-power party next year.

Indeed, much of Ms. McDaniels speech was Republican red meat. There were warnings against socialism, attacks on the four liberal congresswomen known as the squad and boasting about the diverse class of lawmakers who helped the party gain House seats in November despite Mr. Trumps broad unpopularity. Candidates matter, she said, alluding to new lawmakers.

David Bossie, one of Mr. Trumps advisers and the Maryland committeeman, insisted that the partys losses had been on the margins.

You dont have to throw out everybody when theres nothing fundamentally wrong, Mr. Bossie said.

A handful of committee members, however, believe more reflection is desperately needed, particularly after this week. Were whistling past the graveyard, said Henry Barbour, the Mississippi committeeman, who called Mr. Trumps conduct before the riot totally unacceptable.

Few of his counterparts, though, would criticize the president.

Asked if Mr. Trump was still the effective leader of the G.O.P., the Wyoming Republican chair, Frank Eathorne, said, The way Wyoming sees it, yes.

Continue reading here:

In Capital, a G.O.P. Crisis. At the R.N.C. Meeting, a Trump Celebration. - The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re To Survive, Republicans Must Impeach, by Bret Stephens (column, Jan. 12):

They must have missed the 6MWE (Six Million Werent Enough) and Camp Auschwitz shirts worn by some in the mob who stormed the Capitol. Maybe they didnt know that the seditionists built gallows on the grounds and carried plastic handcuffs, or that five died in the violent attacks.

For those such as Kevin McCarthy, the most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives, who now call for unity, that ship has sailed. You aided and abetted the sedition, and then, after witnessing the demolition, about 140 of you still voted to put your stamp of approval on it.

President Trump must be removed from office ASAP. Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and other accessories to the crime should be censured and considered persona non grata by their party.

If we are to heal as a country, those in office who supported a rogue president above their country should be shamed. If we are to recover, we must admit that this is who we are now. It will take a reckoning to recover and to become the country we hope to be.

Elliott MillerBala Cynwyd, Pa.

Read more from the original source:

Opinion | Trump and the Complicit Republicans - The New York Times