Category: MittRomney

Rep. Jamie Raskin blows up Republican lies about alleged Biden corruption

Posted on by Laura Clawson

As House Republicans gear up to impeach President Joe Biden, Rep. Jamie Raskin has released a thorough statement debunking the supposed basis for an impeachment.

“House Republicans constantly insist that they are investigating President Biden, and not his adult son,” Raskin said in the statement. He continued:

In that case, we can form an obvious judgment on their investigation:  it has been a complete and total bust—an epic flop in the history of congressional investigations.  The voluminous evidence they have gathered, including thousands of pages of bank records and suspicious activity reports and hours of testimony from witnesses, overwhelmingly demonstrates no wrongdoing by President Biden and further debunks Republicans’ conspiracy theories.

Fear not: Raskin has the receipts. Among the 12,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records, more than 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports, and multiple witnesses interviewed, including two former business associates of Hunter Biden, Republicans have found:

  • No bank records showing payments to the president.

  • No suspicious activity reports alleging potential misconduct by the president or that he is involved in his son’s business dealings.

  • No witnesses testifying to misconduct by the president.

But none of that has stopped Republicans like House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer from claiming that the opposite is true. “We’ve got a President of the United States who’s taken millions and millions of dollars from bad people and bad countries around the world,” Comer has claimed, according to Raskin’s statement, even though Comer has no actual evidence of that.

In fact, as Raskin shows, lots of Republicans know Comer hasn’t found anything meaningful. Here are just a few examples:

  • Breitbart editor Emma Jo-Morris criticized Chairman Comer for promoting bribery allegations against President Biden even though he has “not shown [proof] to the public,” while Steve Bannon also lambasted Chairman Comer for failing to provide evidence to support his bribery allegations, saying of Chairman Comer, “You’re not serious.  It’s all performative.” [...]

  • Rep. Don Bacon acknowledged that Republicans have failed to prove any wrongdoing by President Biden, “If you wanna get any progress in the Senate, you’re gonna have to show not potential wrongdoing, but wrongdoing.  I don’t think we’re there yet.”  Rep. Bacon also said that he thinks “we need to have more concrete evidence to go down” the impeachment inquiry path.

  • Sen. Ron Johnson conceded that Republicans have not found any “direct evidence” or “hard proof” of wrongdoing by President Biden.  [...]

  • Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said, “I don’t know what the basis of this call for impeachment is. It just sounds like a lot of noise to me.”  Sen. Capito also responded "I do not" when asked if she thinks there is evidence to support an impeachment.

  • Sen. Mitt Romney acknowledged, “I haven’t seen any evidence” that meets the “constitutional test for impeachment.” [...]

  • An anonymous GOP lawmaker offered the following assessment to CNN:  “There’s no evidence that Joe Biden got money, or that Joe Biden, you know, agreed to do something so that Hunter could get money.  There’s just no evidence of that.  And they can’t impeach without that evidence.  And I don’t I don’t think the evidence exists.”

It goes on. Those are six of the 19 bullet points Raskin assembles to show that even many prominent Republicans don’t think Comer has assembled enough evidence to impeach Biden.

The problem is, Fox News will always give Comer a platform to lie about what his own investigations have found. That’s the plan to impeach Biden: Yell again and again that he has taken millions of dollars in illicit payoffs, and rely on those claims to make headlines while the truth is reported as an afterthought. This is a challenge for the media (or the non-right-wing media, anyway): Report on House Republican claims with the truth first and foremost, and make clear the fact that their lies are lies from the start. So far, it’s not doing so hot. When House Republicans move forward with impeachment, the traditional media is going to need to raise its game.

Sign the petition: No more wasted taxpayer money on frivolous GOP hearings.

Why does it seem like Republicans have such a hard time recruiting Senate candidates who actually live in the states they want to run in? We're discussing this strange but persistent phenomenon on this week's edition of "The Downballot." The latest example is former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who's been spending his time in Florida since leaving the House in 2015, but he's not the only one. Republican Senate hopefuls in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Montana, and Wisconsin all have questionable ties to their home states—a problem that Democrats have gleefully exploited in recent years. (Remember Dr. Oz? Of course you do.)

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Morning Digest: While Romney dithers, his rivals ramp up their campaigns

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.

Subscribe to The Downballot, our weekly podcast

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Leading Off

● UT-Sen, UT-Gov: Mitt Romney tells the Wall Street Journal in a new interview that he remains undecided about seeking a second term as Utah's junior senator after spending the last few years as the Republican that MAGA world most loves to hate, and everyone's going to stay in suspense for a while longer. Romney reaffirmed his intention to make up his mind in the fall and added that the verdict could come, in the paper's words, "possibly around October."

As Romney deliberates, another prominent Republican, state House Speaker Brad Wilson, continues to raise money and secure endorsements for his own potential campaign, but Wilson is also keeping the Beehive State guessing as to whether he's actually willing to run against the incumbent. The speaker formed an exploratory committee in April—a move that the Salt Lake Tribune said infuriated Romney's camp—and his spokesperson now says that Wilson is "exploring his own potential race, irrespective of what other potential candidates may or may not do." However, the Journal writes that, according to unnamed sources, Wilson is indeed waiting to see what the senator will do.

Conservative hardliners, though, may not be satisfied if Wilson does end up taking on the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee. The speaker told Fox 13 in April that he was someone who could "get a lot of people with very differing opinions together and get them to work together on hard things and solve hard challenges," which is not what you'd normally expect to hear from a member of Trump's GOP.

Wilson's team does seem to realize that running as a bipartisan problem solver isn't a winning strategy, though: His campaign rolled out endorsements earlier this month from fellow legislators that featured testimonials calling him a "conservative champion" and someone who worked to "advance pro-life legislation." (Altogether, three-quarters of House Republicans and two-thirds of the Senate caucus backed him.) However, while Wilson has indeed helped pass anti-abortion legislation, the Associated Press also noted that he helped stop the legislature from formally rebuking none other than Romney in 2020 for his vote to convict Trump during his first impeachment trial.

Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs offered Romney haters a more ideologically pure option in May when he kicked off his challenge by proclaiming that "the only thing I've seen him fight for are the establishment, wokeness, open borders, impeaching President Trump, and putting us even deeper into debt." Staggs, though, turned in a weak opening fundraising quarter by bringing in just $170,000 through June and self-funding another $50,000; Wilson, by contrast, raised $1 million and threw down another $1.2 million of his own money. (Romney himself only raised $350,000 from donors while bringing in another $710,000 by renting out his fundraising list.)

Two other prominent hardliners have publicly or privately talked about taking on Romney, but neither appears excited about the idea. Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz told ABC News last week that, while he hasn't ruled out running for Romney's Senate seat, he's more interested in a bid for governor at some point. When the Deseret News inquired if he was thinking about waging a GOP primary battle this cycle against Gov. Spencer Cox, who like Romney wants the GOP to move on from Trump, Chaffetz replied, "Not making any decisions yet on anything. Some day, some time I am interested in running for governor."

Attorney General Sean Reyes, meanwhile, once looked like an all but certain Romney foe; Politico even reported in March of 2022 that Reyes was "preparing" a bid and would "make a final decision and likely announce his intentions" two months hence. Reyes, however, still has yet to say anything about his plans well over a year later, and he wouldn't offer a comment when ABC contacted him earlier this month.

But Romney himself may be his own biggest obstacle toward renomination, as a July survey from Noble Predictive Insights gave him an upside-down 43-54 favorable rating with Utah Republicans. (NPI, which sometimes works for conservative groups, sampled 301 Republicans, which is one more than the minimum that Daily Kos Elections requires before we'll write up a survey and analyze it; the firm did not mention a client.) The poll did show Romney beating Reyes 30-13 in a hypothetical seven-way matchup as Wilson grabbed at 5%, but that's still a weak position for any incumbent to find themselves in.

Senate

● FL-Sen: State House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell announced Monday she would not challenge GOP Sen. Rick Scott, a move that will come as welcome news to national Democrats who want former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell as their standard bearer. We may be hearing more from Driskell next cycle, though, as the Palm Beach Post reported earlier this month that some prominent party members preferred she run for governor in 2026 rather than take on Scott: State Sen. Bobby Powell said as much to the paper, calling Driskell "the most qualified candidate" to win the party its first gubernatorial race since 1994.

Governors

● LA-Gov: Republican Treasurer John Schroder has languished in the polls despite beating all his rivals to TV back in March, but he's hoping to change things with spots blasting each of his two most prominent intra-party rivals. The campaign tells the Shreveport Times this is the start of a $1.3 million TV buy that will last through the Oct. 14 all-party primary.

One ad begins by trashing Attorney General Jeff Landry for sending $420,000 in campaign contributions to the staffing company he owns, a move The Advocate in March called "an unusual arrangement that circumvents the common practice of political figures around the state and ensures the public does not know who he is paying to work on his campaign." The narrator continues by taking former state Chamber of Commerce head Stephen Waguespack to task for his service in then-Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration a decade ago, saying, "Waguespack and Jindal wrecked out public universities and our state budget."

The other piece argues that Landry and Waguespack are "political insiders" who would continue an unacceptable status quo, while Schroder would bring about "change." Schroder himself was elected to the state House in 2007 and won a promotion to statewide office a decade later, but he insists he's different by proclaiming, "As state treasurer, I beat the fat cats for you."

● NC-Gov: HuffPost's Jennifer Bendery has unearthed some previously unknown and "unbelievably bonkers" conspiracy theory ramblings from Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, including a 2019 Facebook post declaring, "Beyoncé's songs sound like Satanic chants." Robinson wrote two years earlier on the platform, "I don't believe the Moon Landing was faked and I don't believe 9/11 was an 'inside job' but if I found both were true… I wouldn't be surprised."

● WA-Gov: Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson last week gave up trying to contest a new policy from the state's Public Disclosure Commission, which determined earlier this year that the law barring individuals from contributing more than $2,400 to a candidate per election also counts toward donations he'd transferred from his account for past campaigns for attorney general into his new effort. Ferguson, with the permission of each donor, sent $1.2 million of these "surplus funds" to his exploratory campaign for governor just before the PDC's new directive was finalized, and he spent months arguing that those contributors were still free to give $2,400 more to his gubernatorial race.

The PDC disagreed and filed a complaint against him after he wouldn't identify how much money from the surplus fund came from each donor and instead classified the $1.2 million as "miscellaneous receipts." However, Ferguson ultimately provided this information last week: His team told the PDC it was taking this action to apply to its "new interpretation" of campaign finance law, adding that "we trust the [PDC] complaint will be dismissed and this matter concluded."

Ferguson, though, enjoys a massive financial edge over all his rivals ahead of next year's top-two primary. The attorney general, according to the Seattle Times, has taken in $3.6 million total, compared to $610,000 for state Sen. Mark Mullet; a third Democrat, Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz, has brought in $410,000. On the GOP side, former Rep. Dave Reichert has only taken in $240,000 for his comeback bid, while recently-recalled Richland school board member Semi Bird has raised $140,000.

House

● IN-05: Madison County Prosecutor Rodney Cummings announced last week that he was dropping out of the Republican primary for this gerrymandered seat, saying that "on June 15, I experienced a significant health event which has caused me to reconsider my candidacy."

Cummings' departure leaves a pair of self-funders, state Rep. Chuck Goodrich and trucking company owner Sid Mahant, as the only serious contenders running to succeed retiring Rep. Victoria Spartz, though the field may grow again soon. Howey Politics wrote last week that Max Engling, who is a former aide to Speaker Kevin McCarthy, is moving back to Indiana ahead of his own launch, while former state Sen. Mike Delph is also reportedly interested.

● NV-03: Republican Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama on Monday announced that she would take on Democratic Rep. Susie Lee for a district in the southern Las Vegas area where the GOP previously lacked a viable candidate. Kasama, who is a former president of the Nevada REALTORS, won her spot in the legislature 54-44 in 2020 as Donald Trump was pulling off a smaller 50-48 victory in the old version of her seat, and she pulled off the same performance two years later in what was still a light red constituency.

Kasama joins a nomination contrast that already included former state Sen. Elizabeth Helgelien and conservative columnist Drew Johnson, but both of them struggled to raise money during their opening quarter. Lee, for her part, finished June with $810,000 banked to defend a seat that Joe Biden carried 52-46.

Legislatures

● GA State Senate: Republican state Sen. Shawn Still, a fraudulent elector who was indicted last week alongside Donald Trump for his alleged role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, could get suspended from the Senate as a result of his legal woes, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's David Wickert.

Under the state constitution, a three-person panel to be convened by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp must decide whether Still's indictment both "relates to and adversely affects the administration" of his office and "that the rights and interests of the public are adversely affected thereby." If the panel concludes the answer to both questions is yes, then Still would be suspended until "the final disposition of the case" or his term expires, whichever happens first.

It's unclear when the matter will be resolved, though legal experts believe the case is unlikely to go to trial in March, as requested by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. As a result, Still could find himself contemplating whether to seek reelection next year while he's under suspension. Undoubtedly, party leaders would prefer he not do so, particularly because his district in the Atlanta suburbs is vulnerable despite extensive GOP gerrymandering.

Incidentally, Still can thank former state Labor Commissioner Sam Caldwell for his latest predicament. In 1983, Caldwell was indicted by Fulton County prosecutors on a variety of charges, including allegations that he'd defrauded the state by demanding his employees perform extensive repairs on boats he owned. He resisted calls to resign and was only removed from office under threat of impeachment following his conviction the next year.

To avoid a similar spectacle in the future, Georgia lawmakers placed an amendment on the ballot in 1984 that would allow for the suspension of indicted public officials. It passed with 93% support. Shortly thereafter, Caldwell was also found guilty in federal court of deliberately sinking his yacht in order to collect insurance proceeds. Ironically, Caldwell's earlier conviction in state court centered around RICO charges—the very same statute Fulton County's current district attorney, Fani Willis, is relying on to prosecute Trump, Still, and their alleged co-conspirators.

● NH State House: New Hampshire will hold a special election for the vacant 16th House District in Grafton County on Tuesday, which Democrats should easily hold. The race is significant, though, because it's one of three specials Democrats need to win between now and Nov. 7 in order to strip the GOP's majority in the state House and force the chamber into an exact tie.

At the moment, Republicans hold 199 seats in the House to 196 for Democrats, with two independents (one a former Democrat and one an ex-Republican) and three seats vacant. Those vacancies include Grafton's 16th, which covers the town of Enfield and became vacant in April after Democrat Joshua Adjutant resigned following a serious injury. Joe Biden carried the district by a wide 64-34 margin in 2020, according to Dave's Redistricting App, and Adjutant won without opposition last year, so Democrat David Fracht will be the heavy favorite against Republican John Keane on Tuesday.

If Fracht prevails, Democrats will also need to flip a swingy GOP-held seat in the 1st District in Rockingham County on Sept. 19 and then hold a seat in the solidly blue 3rd District in Hillsborough County on Nov. 7 to create a 199-199 tie in the House. If they do run the table, it's not clear exactly what might happen next, but at the very least, having more Democrats on the floor will make it harder for Republicans to pass their agenda, and it'll better position Democrats to retake the chamber next year.

Obituaries

● Al Quie: Minnesota Republican Al Quie, who won his only term as governor in 1978 after spending just over two decades in the U.S. House, died Friday at the age of 99. Quie, who was elected to represent southern Minnesota in a tight 1958 special before quickly becoming entrenched, decided to campaign statewide in what proved to be a horrible year for the dominant Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.

Gov. Wendell Anderson had responded to Sen. Walter Mondale's 1976 win as Jimmy Carter's running mate by resigning so that his elevated lieutenant governor, Rudy Perpich, could appoint him to the Senate. Republicans in 1978 were eager to ride the local backlash, which also took place as the nation was struggling with inflation, and the state party debuted a memorable slogan around Halloween, "Something scary is about to happen to the DFL. It’s called an election."

Quie unseated Perpich 52-45 as Republican Rudy Boschwitz was scoring a 57-40 victory over Anderson. The GOP also flipped Minnesota's other Senate seat that same night as David Durenberger, who had originally planned to run for governor himself, decisively won the special election to succeed the late Sen. Hubert Humphrey, and the Minneapolis Star's Austin Wehrwein immediately dubbed the Republican wave year "the Minnesota massacre."

Quie, though, would spend his four years in office dealing with a huge budget deficit, and he eventually made the unpopular decision to raise taxes to confront the crisis. The governor decided not to wage what would have been a difficult reelection bid, and Perpich went on to win back the governorship in a landslide. While Quie never again sought elected office, one of his Democratic successors, Mark Dayton, responded to his death by noting, "After leaving office, he lived his deep faith by mentoring men just released from prison. He accompanied one to the State Pardon Board during my service and personally gained him a pardon by his passionate advocacy."

MAGA’s most hated Republican plans to keep us guessing about his reelection plans a while longer

Posted on by Jeff Singer

Mitt Romney tells the Wall Street Journal in a new interview that he remains undecided about seeking a second term as Utah's junior senator after spending the last few years as the Republican that MAGA world most loves to hate, and everyone's going to stay in suspense for a while longer. Romney reaffirmed his intention to make up his mind in the fall and added that the verdict could come, in the paper's words, "possibly around October."

As Romney deliberates, another prominent Republican, state House Speaker Brad Wilson, continues to raise money and secure endorsements for his own potential campaign, but Wilson is also keeping the Beehive State guessing as to whether he's actually willing to run against the incumbent. The speaker formed an exploratory committee in April—a move that the Salt Lake Tribune said infuriated Romney's camp—and his spokesperson now says that Wilson is "exploring his own potential race, irrespective of what other potential candidates may or may not do." However, the Journal writes that, according to unnamed sources, Wilson is indeed waiting to see what the senator will do.

Conservative hardliners, though, may not be satisfied if Wilson does end up taking on the 2012 presidential nominee. The speaker told Fox 13 in April that he was someone who could “get a lot of people with very differing opinions together and get them to work together on hard things and solve hard challenges,” which is not what you'd normally expect to hear from a member of Trump’s GOP.

Wilson's team does seem to realize that running as a bipartisan problem solver isn't a winning strategy, though: His campaign rolled out endorsements earlier this month from fellow legislators that featured testimonials calling him a "conservative champion" and someone who worked to "advance pro-life legislation." (Altogether, three-quarters of House Republicans and two-thirds of the Senate caucus backed him.) However, while Wilson has indeed helped pass anti-abortion legislation, the Associated Press also noted that he helped stop the legislature from formally rebuking none other than Romney in 2020 for his vote to convict Trump during his first impeachment trial.

Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs offered Romney haters a more ideologically pure option in May when he kicked off his challenge by proclaiming that "the only thing I've seen him fight for are the establishment, wokeness, open borders, impeaching President Trump, and putting us even deeper into debt." Staggs, though, turned in a weak opening fundraising quarter by bringing in just $170,000 through June and self-funding another $50,000; Wilson, by contrast, raised $1 million and threw down another $1.2 million of his own money. (Romney himself only raised $350,000 from donors while bringing in another $710,000 by renting out his fundraising list.)

Two other prominent hardliners have publicly or privately talked about taking on Romney, but neither appears excited about the idea. Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz told ABC News last week that, while he hasn't ruled out running for Romney's Senate seat, he's more interested in a bid for governor at some point. When the Deseret News inquired if he was thinking about waging a GOP primary battle this cycle against Gov. Spencer Cox, who like Romney wants the GOP to move on from Trump, Chaffetz replied, "Not making any decisions yet on anything. Some day, some time I am interested in running for governor."

Attorney General Sean Reyes, meanwhile, once looked like an all but certain Romney foe; Politico even reported in March of 2022 that Reyes was "preparing" a bid and would "make a final decision and likely announce his intentions" two months hence. Reyes, however, still has yet to say anything about his plans well over a year later, and he wouldn't offer a comment when ABC contacted him earlier this month.

But Romney himself may be his own biggest obstacle towards renomination, as a July survey from Noble Predictive Insights gave him an upside-down 43-54 favorable rating with Utah Republicans. (NPI, which sometimes works for conservative groups, sampled 301 Republicans, which is one more than the minimum that Daily Kos Elections requires before we'll write up a survey and analyze it; the firm did not mention a client.) The poll did show Romney beating Reyes 30-13 in a hypothetical seven-way matchup as Wilson grabbed at 5%, but that's still a weak position for any incumbent to find themselves in.

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Trump lashes out at Mitt Romney for proposing plan to stop him from winning GOP nomination

Posted on (Updated by Charles Jay

Donald Trump went on yet another rant, this time against Sen. Mitt Romney on his Truth Social platform after the Utah senator wrote an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal on Monday, proposing a plan to stop Trump from winning the GOP presidential nomination. Analysts said the plan was unlikely to succeed.

Late Tuesday night, Trump lashed out at both Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who in May declared that the GOP should come up with another candidate because Trump was simply unelectable. Trump then asked his followers to weigh in and spent hours reposting derogatory comments, in particular about Romney, The Independent reported.

Trump wrote on Truth Social:

”Who is a worse Senator, John ‘The Stiff’ Cornyn of Texas, or Mitt ‘The Loser’ Romney of Massachusetts (Utah?)? They are both weak, ineffective, and very bad for the Republican Party, and our Nation. With even modestly skilled opposition, they’’ll lose their next-Election.  Who could even forget Mitt proudly marching, with full mask, down a once proud Washington, D.C. street with BLM and Rioters? Likewise there’s Cornyn, always quick to surrender to the Dems, giving them anything they want?” 

There’s something funny about Donald Trump calling Mitt Romney “The Loser”… pic.twitter.com/Nsg0E5JiKN

— Benjamin Rothove (@BenjaminRothove) July 26, 2023

In June 2020, Romney tweeted a picture showing him wearing a face mask as he marched in a protest in Washington, D.C., after the police killing of George Floyd.

Black Lives Matter. pic.twitter.com/JpXUFlxH2J

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) June 7, 2020

Romney, a Mormon, became a full-time Utah resident after he lost the 2012 presidential election to Barack Obama. He was elected to the Senate in 2018. He was the only Republican senator to vote twice to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trials.  

The twice-impeached, twice-indicted (and counting) former president was enraged after Romney published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday headlined: “Donors, Don’t Fund a Trump Plurality.”

Romney wrote:

“Despite Donald Trump’s apparent inevitability, a baker’s dozen Republicans are hoping to become the party’s 2024 nominee for president. That is possible for any of them if the field narrows to a two-person race before Mr. Trump has the nomination sewn up. For that to happen, Republican megadonors and influencers—large and small—are going to have to do something they didn’t do in 2016: get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths to the nomination are effectively closed. That decision day should be no later than, say, Feb. 26, the Monday following the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.”

Romney noted that if candidates stay in the race for a long time, they will split the non-Trump vote and hand the nomination to Trump. That’s because unlike Democratic presidential primaries, a plurality is all that’s needed for GOP winner-take-all primaries. Romney concluded by writing:

“Our party and our country need a nominee with character, driven by something greater than revenge and ego, preferably from the next generation. Family, friends and campaign donors are the only people who can get a lost-cause candidate to exit the race. After Feb. 26, they should start doing just that.”

Well, good luck with that plan, Mitt. It’s simply too little, too late.

It didn’t take long for The Washington Post’s Philip Bump to write an analysis on Tuesday titled, “The fatal flaws in Mitt Romney’s plans to stop Trump.” Bump said there were three big problems with Romney’s latest plan to stop Trump. First, Bump said that Romney was wrong about how things worked in 2015-2016. Even though Trump was only getting about one-third of the support in pre-primary polls, it didn’t mean that two-thirds of Republicans opposed him. As the primaries proceeded and candidates dropped out, Trump kept picking up some of the support those candidates had enjoyed, until his nomination was secured.

Second, Bump pointed out that it’s unlikely that the Republicans could replay the scenario that occurred with the Democrats in 2020 when Sen. Bernie Sanders and other Democratic candidates dropped out of the race to back Biden after the South Carolina primary. Bump noted that “the Democratic nominating process is more equitable for candidates than the Republican one” and that “the GOP process disproportionately rewards whoever is leading in the polls.” He said that waiting to see which Republican emerges as the most viable non-Trump candidate means letting Trump build up an early lead in delegates.

The third problem with Romney’s proposal, according to Bump, is that Trump “is much better positioned now than he was in 2015 or 2016.” National polling averages show Trump has consistently been at or over 50% since the beginning of the year. And as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign has cratered, Trump is near 50% as the first choice of Republican voters in the early states of Iowa and Nebraska. Bump concluded:

These numbers can shift, but they already undermine Romney’s argument. The idea that there is a plurality of Republicans who oppose Trump might have been true in 2016, but there’s no evidence of that now. Consolidating around one candidate seems, at least at this point, like it would not have much effect on Trump’s march to the nomination.

Matthew Dowd, who served as President George W. Bush’s chief strategist in the 2004 presidential campaign, in an interview Tuesday on MSNBC pointed out another flaw in Romney’s proposal—his emphasis on the influence of megadonors.

"It (the GOP nominating process) is controlled by small donors, and Donald Trump has shown that his ability to raise money, $30, $40, $50 at a time, and he can outraise anybody else," said Dowd. “Mitt Romney wants to signal to megadonors what to do in this process. They really don't control the process. The students are in charge of campus today, and the deans have left town. And that's what Mitt Romney doesn't seem to understand about the Republican Party."

Dowd, who is now a Democrat, did have a suggestion as to what Romney could do if he wanted to make a real difference.

"If Mitt Romney really wanted to have an effect, Mitt Romney could stand up and say, me, and Sen. [Lisa] Murkowski (R-AK) and maybe one or two others, if Donald Trump is the nominee, we're going to become independents and caucus with the Democrats in the Senate in order to hold the MAGA side of the party accountable.

"That would send more shock waves through the system and maybe get people to actually do something about Donald Trump.”

YouTube Video

In another Truth Social post, Trump managed to put the shiv into the GOP presidential primary opponent who has been most outspoken in criticizing the former president. He accused former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie of costing Romney the 2012 presidential race by embracing President Barack Obama on the Jersey Shore after Superstorm Sandy struck in October 2012. Trump wrote:

Christie was so star struck with Barack Hussein Obuma (sic), that Romney, who is a terrible politician and horrible representative of the Republican Party, never had a chance of winning the Presidency. Christie sold Romney out, making one of the worst Convention Speeches in History—Virtually not even mentioning Romney by name. Romney sat watching, in a trance—He couldn’t believe it!

Christie helped Trump prepare for the 2020 presidential debates with Joe Biden, only to become very ill with COVID-19 shortly afterward. Trump was carrying the virus during the Sept. 29 debate and was diagnosed with COVID-19 a few days later. Christie’s relationship with Trump further deteriorated after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump has also blamed Christie for recommending the appointment of Christopher Wray to be the FBI director. Trump and his allies have castigated Wray and the FBI for their role in the investigation into his handling of classified documents, including the search of his Mar-a-Lago estate, that resulted in a multi-count indictment.

As for Romney, there are already signs that he is going to face a MAGA challenger should he decide to seek reelection to the Senate in 2024. In May, the mayor of Riverton, Utah, Trent Staggs, announced his candidacy for Romney’s seat, according to the AP.

“The only thing I’ve seen him fight for are the Establishment, ‘wokeness,’ open borders, impeaching President Trump and putting us even deeper into debt,” Staggs said in his announcement video that highlights Romney’s votes to impeach Trump, according to the AP.

The AP reported that other Republicans, including former U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz and state Attorney General Sean Reyes, were considering challenging Romney from the right. Romney retains widespread popularity in Utah because his family ranks among the most prominent members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and many Mormons have had reservations about Trump’s moral character.

But let’s not forget that Romney sought and accepted Trump’s endorsement in 2012.

Reminder that Romney gladly accepted Trump's endorsement in February 2012, when Trump's political claim to fame was pushing racist conspiracy theories about Obama https://t.co/NKBbPCFkbC pic.twitter.com/brcVo0htjH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 19, 2022

Now Romney is clearly on Trump’s enemies list.

And look at who else has joined Trump in criticizing Romney: U.S. Rep. George Santos, who called the Utah senator “the biggest clown we’ve seen in government.” Certainly takes one to know one.

George Santos on Mitt Romney: “He’s a clown. He’s the biggest clown we’ve seen in government.” Coming from a notorious fraudster and a pathological liar, that’s a real compliment for Senator Romney. pic.twitter.com/clJW2v2Qox

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 19, 2023

America’s least popular senator is … Moscow Mitch McConnell!

Posted on by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

Ah, Mitch McConnell: the man whose face has launched a thousand quips. His refulgent charm touches our hearts, kidneys, lower intestine, and so on, before awkwardly lingering at our undercarriage and asking us to turn our heads and cough. His smile can light up a roomful of opium pipes. Amazing that we liberals decided to keep him in the Senate while we were stealing the election from Donald Trump. Maybe we need to lay off the adrenochrome for a bit. We’re clearly not thinking straight.

Of course, there was one thing we liberals couldn’t possibly keep Mitch from winning, and that’s the title of most loathed senator in the land.

The Hill:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is the least popular senator in the U.S., according to new polling, as the Kentucky Republican has faced backlash from both the right and the left over the last year.

McConnell holds a disapproval rating of 64 percent in his home state, according to the polling from Morning Consult. He had the approval of just 29 percent of Kentucky respondents.

McConnell, who has been the Senate’s top Republican since 2006, has been the target of much fury from former President Trump, who just this week took him to task for his handling of last year’s omnibus bill and called for him to face a primary challenger.

Moscow Mitch wasn’t alone in stoking the public’s distaste for politics, of course. In fact, the country’s least popular senators should be intimately familiar to anyone who’s kept up with the news over the past two years.

Rounding out the top five are Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Republican Susan Collins of Maine, and Democrat-turned-independent Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. (Collins is reportedly very concerned about her ranking.) Six through 10 are all Republicans: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Crapo of Idaho, and Mitt Romney of Utah.

Of course, it’s obvious what’s happening with some of these characters. Manchin and Sinema spent much of the past two years murdering dreams on behalf of their corporate overlords, while Donald Trump’s frequent criticism of McConnell, Murkowski, and Romney for not being abject lickspittles has no doubt dragged their favorables down. The rest—such as Johnson, Cruz, and Graham—no doubt earned their spots more honestly, by assiduously working on sucking. 

Meanwhile, only four senators, McConnell, Manchin, Johnson, and Collins, had disapproval ratings above 50%—though McConnell’s disapproval rating, at 64%, far outstripped the others. The next highest was Manchin’s, at 53%.

But while these senators are generally unpopular, it’s not clear that they’ll ever be punished at the ballot box. McConnell, Collins, and Graham aren’t up for reelection until 2026, and Cruz is still somehow popular among Republicans, at least. In fact, if there’s anyone who might have cause to worry, it’s Romney—but only because of his relatively shaky standing among GOP voters. 

Morning Consult:

Only Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee who voted twice to convict then-President Donald Trump during his impeachment trials, looks in trouble on the right.

Just 41% of Utah Republicans approve of Romney’s job performance, compared with 54% who disapprove. As he weighs a re-election campaign, that leaves Romney only slightly more popular than he was in the wake of Trump’s second impeachment trial in the first quarter of 2021.

The five most popular senators, according to Morning Consult, are Republican John Barrasso, Republican John Thune of South Dakota, Democrat Patrick Leahy (whose final term expired on Jan. 3), independent Bernie Sanders, and Republican Cynthia Lummis. Both Barrasso and Lummis represent Wyoming, while Sanders and Leahy both hail from Vermont.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

‘Embarrassing,’ ‘stupid’: Republicans blast national party as if it bears no relation to them

Posted on (Updated by Kerry Eleveld

Senate Republicans have finally located their problem, and it's the Republican National Committee. After the RNC last week endorsed the Jan. 6 insurrection as "legitimate political discourse," many congressional Republicans are pretending like the national Republican Party bears no relationship to them.

"I'm not a member of the RNC," Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas said Sunday when asked whether GOP Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois deserved to be censured by the RNC for participating in the Jan. 6 probe. Within the text of that censure resolution, the RNC endorsed the violent Jan. 6 assault that resulted in death and destruction as "legitimate political discourse."

"It could not have been a more inappropriate message," said Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the uncle of RNC chair Ronna McDaniel. Romney said he had texted with McDaniel after passage of the resolution and described her to CNN as a "wonderful person and doing her very best." But as for the resolution, Romney added, "Anything that my party does that comes across as being stupid is not going to help us."

Stupid is apt—but let's not limit the moniker to McDaniel and the national party alone. Republicans, eyeing an election cycle that should absolutely favor them based on historical trends, had the chance to bury Donald Trump last year during his second impeachment trial and leave much of his political baggage in the rearview mirror. Instead, they breathed new life into him, and now they're pretending like the RNC is solely responsible for his drag on the party.

The RNC censure resolution came at the end of a week that was kicked off by Trump dangling pardons for Jan. 6 convicts during a Texas rally the weekend before. Trump then called on Congress to investigate his former vice president, Mike Pence, for failing to unilaterally "overturn" a free and fair 2020 election.

But the RNC's endorsement of the Jan. 6 violence was just the latest in a years-long parade of Republican efforts to appease and coddle Trump. He has continually demanded absolute fealty from Republicans every step of the way, and they have acquiesced time and time again. With its censure resolution, the RNC was once again mollifying Trump by pursuing his political vendetta against Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger, both of whom voted to impeach him for inciting the Jan. 6 attack.

Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina, also one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump, told CNN the House GOP caucus avoided the topic of the censure altogether in its conference meeting Tuesday, suggesting the whole episode was just too cringey to touch.

“It was pretty damn embarrassing,” Rice said.

But Senate Republicans are especially prickly on the matter, particularly those who had a chance to impeach Trump for inciting the attack on the U.S. government and explicitly declined to take it.

"It's just not a constructive move, when you're trying to win elections and take on Democrats, to take on Republicans," said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, as if no one could have imagined Trump would inspire internecine mayhem when he voted to let him off the hook for Jan. 6.

Asked if McDaniel should step aside, Thune pretended the RNC had nothing whatsoever to do with congressional Republicans. "Oh, I don't know. Ultimately, it will be up to the RNC," he said of McDaniel's fate.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina rolled out the same talking point Senate Republicans have been parroting every time Trump pulls them into some new controversy—2022 is all about the future for Republicans, folks.

"I think all of us up here want to talk about forward and not backward," Graham said. "We want to talk about why we should be in charge of the House and the Senate, and when you're not talking about that, that takes you in the wrong direction."

And by talking about why Republicans should be in charge, Graham means deliberately not releasing a 2022 agenda so voters will have exactly no idea what Republicans plan to do if they retake control of the upper chamber.

The frustration among most Republicans was palpable.

"I think the RNC should be focused on electing Republicans," said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Even House Republicans, led by Trump hack Kevin McCarthy, sought to distance themselves from the RNC's unforced error.

Asked about the RNC resolution, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise told CNN, "My focus has been on what we need to do to take back the House."

The House GOP campaign chief, Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, added, "We're focused on winning the majority next fall."

It wasn't exactly a full-throated stand for American democracy, but hey, Republicans want control of Congress so they can end this scurrilous investigation into the worst homegrown attack on the Capitol in U.S. history.

"We ought to capture the Jan. 6 committee and convert it to our purposes: pursuing the extent to which federal involvement might have animated violence," Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, floating a totally unsubstantiated right-wing conspiracy theory.

To be fair, some Republicans did join the RNC in defending the insurrectionists.

"There's no doubt that there were tens of thousands of people engaged in peaceful free speech that the press and Democrats try to demonize falsely," said Sen. Ted Cruz, who voted against certification.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who also voted to throw the election, called the Jan. 6 panel "illegitimate," presumably while pumping his fist.

"They're not following their own rules. And I think, frankly, it's, it harkens back to the House Committee on un-American affairs," said Hawley, engaging the "un-American" topic on which Republicans have become bonafide experts.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, firmly ensconced in his disreality bubble, couldn't dig out of his conspiracy rabbit hole long enough to take note of the RNC aligning itself with Jan. 6 terrorists.

"I did not pay any attention to that," said Johnson, who's up for reelection this year.

But Johnson was upstaged by House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who coughed up an entirely fictional explanation of the RNC's resolution.

“What they were talking about is the six RNC members who Jan 6th has subpoenaed, who weren't even here, who were in Florida that day," McCarthy said—something that was never even mentioned in the censure resolution.

Asked McCarthy about “legitimate political discourse.” “What they were talking about is the six RNC members who Jan 6th has subpoenaed, who weren't even here, who were in Florida that day." He says those who caused damage “should be in jail.” (RNC resolution doesn’t mention that) pic.twitter.com/k4qsLWAOv5

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 8, 2022

McConnell’s vote against allowing impeachment trial shows once again how he’s manipulating the media

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Senate Republicans once again showed the limits of their willingness to hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions. Those limits include the occasional disapproving statement, but emphatically do not include following through when he’s impeached. Just five Republicans voted to even allow the impeachment trial to go forward when Sen. Rand Paul tried to block it on the grounds that Trump is already out of office.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had used leaks that he might vote for conviction to con the traditional media into portraying him as a fair broker, was not one of those five Republican votes. Sen. Rob Portman, who likes to be seen as a reasonable guy who’d consider bipartisan action and who doesn’t have to worry about a primary because he’s retiring, was not one of those five Republican votes.

Nope, the only Republicans who were even open to hearing the evidence on Donald Trump inciting an insurrection that physically threatened all of them were Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse, and Pat Toomey. Murkowski and Romney probably meant it, Collins and Sasse knew that the time had come when they had to do something do justify continuing coverage of their supposed distaste for Trumpism, and Toomey is retiring.

Here’s the really perfect, chef’s kiss part of McConnell voting against a retroactive impeachment trial: Two weeks ago, when he was still majority leader and Trump was still in office, McConnell refused to reconvene the Senate for a trial. But at the same time, he leaked that he might maybe vote to convict, getting the Very Serious Reasonable Person headlines he was seeking. Now McConnell turns around and votes against holding a retroactive trial that is only retroactive because of him.

I’d say, “Do they not think we’re going to notice what they’re doing?” Except that McConnell has the measure of the traditional media, most of which will absolutely allow itself to get played in this way. To really oomph up the level of “Are you kidding me?” involved here, Republicans decided to hear from their go-to constitutional law scholar, Jonathan Turley, about how retroactive trials are no good … even though in 1999 he strongly endorsed retroactive trials. 

The next level of Republican procedural objection will be because Chief Justice John Roberts isn't presiding over the trial, which was 100% his decision and apparently didn’t come with any indication that he is opting out because he considers the trial illegitimate. But Sen. Patrick Leahy, the most senior Democrat in the chamber, will be presiding, which Republicans will use to suggest it’s a partisan event even though Leahy is scrupulously fair, frequently to a self-owning extent.

It remains possible that evidence of Trump’s incitement of insurrection will emerge that’s so strong that not even most Republicans can ignore it. But in the absence of that, consider the wagons fully circled around Trump, and don’t be surprised by it.

Watch Florida Republican try to explain why he thinks Trump impeachment trial is ‘stupid’

Posted on (Updated by Marissa Higgins

Appearing on Fox News Sunday to chat with host Chris Wallace, Sen. Marco Rubio delved into his feelings on former President Donald Trump. What about Trump, specifically? Oh, just the articles of impeachment against him. In a word, Rubio said he finds the trial “stupid.”

In a very slightly more eloquent attempt to express himself, Rubio said he feels, “We already have a flaming fire in this country,” and that a trial would amount to “a bunch of gasoline.” Basically, just another way of arguing that a trial would rupture unity efforts, even though as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued last week, ignoring all that’s gone is actually what is more likely to sow division in the country. Why? Because we need accountability. 

As of Sunday morning, at least one Republican sees the impeachment trial differently than Rubio, however. We can check out more of what Rubio said below, as well as what one of his peers in the Senate argued.

Rubio said he does think Trump “bears responsibility for some of what happened” and that it was “certainly a foreseeable consequence of everything that was going on.” It would be fascinating to hear what Rubio qualifies as “some” of what happened when a group of pro-Trump rioters surged into the U.S. Capitol and effectively terrorized elected officials. Rubio, instead, stressed he thinks that is “separate” from the idea of revisiting it and “stirring” it up. 

Here’s that clip.

Marco Rubio acknowledges Trump "bears responsibility" for the Capitol insurrection, but insists holding him accountable with an impeachment trial is the wrong move because it'll "stir up" the country again pic.twitter.com/egtvNAgrS8

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 24, 2021

Also related to the Trump family, Wallace asked Rubio how he feels about whispers that Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, may run for a senate seat in Florida. Given that Rubio is up for reelection in 2022, a primary challenge is considerably important. Rubio, however, dodged the meat of the question by declaring that he doesn't “really get into the parlor games of Washington.”

He did say that if he wants to be “back in the U.S Senate, I have to earn that every six years” and that he doesn’t own his seat. Which is true, but would ring as a touch more meaningful if Florida didn’t have rampant voter suppression issues. 

Wallace also spoke to Sen. Mitt Romney about the impeachment trial, posing the same question to both Republicans. Did they agree with fellow Republicans who argued that the trial should be thrown out under the alleged basis that it’s unconstitutional to convict a former president? Rubio said yes, he’d definitely vote to nix the trial, but Romney thinks the proceedings are constitutionally solid. (Which, of course, they are.)

“if you look at the preponderance of the legal opinion by scholars over the years,” Romney explained, “the preponderance of opinion is that yes, an impeachment trial is appropriate after someone leaves office.” Romney, who did vote to convict in the first trial, however, did not say how he would vote either way a second time, noting they have yet to actually hear arguments and evidence from both sides. 

Republicans claiming they want the party to break with Trump can start by removing him from office

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Following Donald Trump's attempt to violently overthrow the U.S. government, Republicans have quickly retreated into two camps: Those who have had the sudden epiphany that they must break with Trump to save the party and those who are clinging to him like a life vest to buoy the party’s future.

Make no mistake, they have all been complicit in building Trump and his rabid base into the monster that has swallowed the party whole. Decades of GOP lawmakers carefully nurturing the ignorance of their followers left GOP voters uniquely susceptible to the manipulation of a buffoonish yet dangerous conspiratorial carnival barker like Trump. He is the pinnacle of their creation—able to say and do absolutely anything with impunity to the mindless acceptance and adoration of the Republican base.

The Republican lawmakers who want to stay the course even after Trump's shameful betrayal of the country this week are an irredeemable stain on the conscience of America. That's particularly true for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who eagerly supported a lawsuit backing Trump's fraudulent challenge to the election results, voted to object to certification of those results even after Trump's insurrectionists terrorized the Capitol complex, and then issued a statement Friday saying impeachment would "only divide our country"—never mind the fact that Trump poses an existential threat to the republic. McCarthy and his ilk helped plant the seeds of fascism Trump has supercharged, and they very obviously would gladly disenfranchise the American people to cement their enduring power if that opportunity were to materialize. 

But for those who now claim they want to break with Trump and indeed must do so in order to save the party, they can all start by telling the truth to their constituents—that Trump bamboozled his supporters, betrayed his oath of office, and must be removed from office immediately. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah at least got the truth part of that equation right when he spoke from the Senate floor on Wednesday following the melee. "The best way we can show respect for the voters who were upset [by the election results] is by telling them the truth," Romney said.

The Republicans who now seem eager to leave Trump in the rear view mirror vary between people like Romney, who has at least repeatedly criticized Trump and even voted against clearing him of impeachment charges, to squishy opportunists like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who has consistently stoked Trump fervor over the years. Rubio, who unequivocally celebrated the caravan of Trumpers that forced a Biden campaign bus off a Texas highway in November, has now lamented the siege at the Capitol as a "national embarrassment" and told GOP voters that "some misled you" about the Vice President's ability to reject certification. 

Somewhere in between there's someone like Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the GOP leadership that has done everything in its power to coddle Trump while capitalizing on his populist appeal. 

“What happened in Georgia, what happened today are all indicative that we have to chart a course,” Thune told the New York Times. “I think our identity for the past several years was built around an individual, we got to get back to where it’s built on a set of principles and ideas and policies.” Whatever Thune’s motivations, his diagnosis of the problem is at least somewhat clear eyed. 

But if any of those Republicans are serious about redeeming and reclaiming their party at any level, they must start by making an unmistakable break with their past. That seems unlikely as only one GOP senator (Senator tally here) has expressed an openness to considering the removal of Trump: Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. Even Romney advised Americans to just "hold our breath for the next 20 days" until Biden is sworn in rather than invoke the 25th Amendment. Sorry, but that's not going to cut it. It won't save the Republican Party and it certainly won't save the country from the party, which is now little more than a haven for radical extremists awaiting an opportunity to mount a violent coup.

In fact, just look at where the GOP rank and file in the states are. State party chairs, thrilled with the post-election results of their down-ballot candidates, have said they don’t want to change a thing about the Trumpist direction of their party despite Trump's failure at the top of the ticket.

“As far as I’m concerned, everything’s great,” Stanley Grot, a district-level Republican Party chair in Michigan, said last month even after Trump lost the state by some 150,000 votes.

On Thursday, Trump was reportedly "greeted with applause when he dialed into a breakfast at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee." On Friday, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel betrayed not even a hint of remorse or reflection about Trump’s insurrection when she enthusiastically told the gathering, "Democrats, get ready. Buckle your seatbelts, because we are coming."

If any congressional Republicans truly believe it's time for a different course, they are going to have to take decisive action. These weak whiffs of passive resistance nearly all of them are currently offering are a pathetic mismatch for the present political moment. One would think they might have learned a little something after spending four years registering their discontent by whispering to each other in the cloistered recesses of the Congress. 

And if they're not concerned enough about the preservation of the country to take a stand, they may want to think about the fact that if the pitchforks come the next time, they won't be coming for Democrats alone. Just ask Vice President Mike Pence.

Republicans can’t quit Trump and it’s tearing their party apart

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell's Faustian bargain with Donald Trump is backfiring in spectacular fashion as his Senate caucus descends into bitter internecine warfare over whether to back Trump's seditious effort to overturn the presidential election results.

That intra-party battle spilling into public view is how Republicans kicked off the 117th Congress. As House Democrats narrowly reelected Nancy Pelosi as Speaker Sunday, McConnell lost grip on the caucus he had marshaled nearly a year earlier to clear Trump of impeachment charges against the backdrop of a mountain of evidence Senate Republicans ultimately dismissed without hearing from a single witness. That blind fealty helped assure Trump that no matter what action he took—however reckless, illegal, or traitorous—he would never pay a price for it. And so when Trump lost the presidential election, he decided yet again that making a bid to steal it would be both perfectly in order and without consequence.

So McConnell and congressional Republicans once again stood by Trump for over a month, declaring repeatedly that he had every right to try to overturn the results of an election that was secure, fair, and devoid of fraud. The longer Trump's baseless effort continued, the more bogus it was shown to be through a series of endless losses in both state and federal courtrooms. But when states across the nation finally certified their results rendering Trump the loser, McConnell figured he could just flip the switch, reluctantly embrace the results, and leave Trump in the rearview mirror. 

Not so fast. The monster McConnell nurtured over the last four years with the help of his fellow Republicans has turned on him. Despite his repeated pleas for Senate Republicans to leave Trump for dead when Congress certifies the election results in a joint session Wednesday, the lure of personal ambition proved too powerful for the greater good of the GOP caucus. After Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri announced with the gleam of 2024 in his eyes that he would challenge the results during certification, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas suddenly wanted a piece of the action too. Now about a dozen Senate Republicans—all hoping to ingratiate themselves with Trump's cultists to boost their own political star—have jumped on board the Trump's sedition train. As Joan McCarter notes, that pro-fascist coup faction represents a quarter of the Senate Republican caucus. 

At the other end of the spectrum, several of their GOP colleagues have spoken out forcefully against the largely symbolic, politically expedient, and certainly futile effort—which will ultimately be shot down in the Democrat-controlled House. Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who notably isn't running for reelection in 2022, blasted Hawley and Cruz by name in a statement for trying to undermine "the right of the people to elect their own leaders."

On Wednesday, Toomey said, "I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others.”

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has regularly marched to the beat of his own drummer in the caucus, also skewered the effort as an "egregious ploy." And Sen. Ben Sasse, who is no doubt working to burnish his own brand of Republicanism, called the challenge “a very, very, bad idea,” saying he was both "concerned about the division in America" and the health of the Republican Party. "This is bad for the country and bad for the party,” said Sasse, who just secured another six-year Senate term.

Sen. Tom of Cotton of Arkansas, a GOP firebrand also eyeing 2024, turned in a somewhat unusual condemnation of the pro-Trump challenge on constitutional grounds, saying it would "only embolden those Democrats who want to erode further our system of constitutional government.” 

Even some Republicans in the House have objected to the Trumpian coup. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, also a GOP firebrand and one-time aide to Sen. Cruz, forced his GOP colleagues Sunday to vote on whether the House delegations from the states Trump is challenging should be seated since Republicans are claiming widespread systemic fraud took place in those states.

"After all, those representatives were elected through the very same systems—with the same ballot procedures, with the same signature validations, with the same broadly applied decisions of executive and judicial branch officials—as were the electors chosen for the President of the United States under the laws of those states," Roy said of the House delegations from Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada. Naturally, nearly every one of his GOP voted in favor of seating the delegations, with a vote of 371-2 permitting Pelosi to swear in all the House members from the states Trump is challenging. The two GOP members who voted against it said they simply wanted to debate the matter. 

While the whole episode on Wednesday will serve as yet another stain on the entire Republican party, it will at least have the benefit of forcing Senate Republicans to go on the record either backing a bald-faced betrayal of American democracy or risking the wrath of Trump. Neither one of those positions is particularly enviable for the cohort of vulnerable Senate Republicans in 2022. It forces those Senate Republicans to place very early bets on risking the alienation of more moderate suburban voters in order to woo Trump voters who may or may not actually continue to turn out for the Republican party once Trump isn't on the ticket. Sitting GOP senators such as John Thune of South Dakota are already facing the prospect of attracting primaries from Trump acolytes, which in turn could imperil the GOP’s path to prevailing in subsequent general election contests. 

If Senate Republicans had hung together and refused to challenge the election results during this week’s joint session, they all could have started to build a certain amount of insulation from Trumpian politics moving forward. But as it turns out, a craven party that eagerly betrayed the country to achieve its own political ends has only served to embolden its own cohort of craven politicians who are eagerly throwing their colleagues under the bus to serve their own political ends. What comes around, goes around.