Senator Rob Portman, R-Ohio, joined “Your World” on Wednesday to discuss the state of the Republican Party after former President Donald Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Republican National Committee to give up using his name on behalf of candidates he said are “RINOS”.
PORTMAN: People will use his name in their requests and I’m sure many will. He’s very popular with the Republican base … As a party, we have to go back to politics, to the issues on which the American people generally agree with us. This is where Republicans did well in 2020, except at the top.
NEIL CAVUTO: But you are not on the same page, right? These battles between you and the ex-president keep going. And given the enmity between Trump and [the] Senate [Republican] leader, you must ask yourself if Mitch McConnell is in a separate universe and Trump’s supporters are in a separate universe from him. I’m wondering, where is this going? Are you worried about that?
PORTMAN: With all due respect, I disagree with you that this is about politics. Mitch McConnell and President [Trump] it differed very little in politics. It is not a political debate. This is a personality problem.
CAVUTO: Do you think it’s damaging your party?
PORTMAN: It has the potential to damage the party. It is already making you more divided. But let’s get back to politics. That’s where we agree, that’s where the American people want us to focus. Our job as a party is to help organize democracy around certain ideas. You have organizers on the left and on the right of our democracy. We should say that the deficit is important. Tax reform is important to boost jobs and tax cuts hurt jobs. We are the ones who say that energy independence is a good thing, not a bad thing.
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