“Max Miller is a wonderful person who has done a great job at the White House and will be a fantastic congressman,” said Trump in a statement released by Save America, the former president’s political action committee. “He is a veteran of the Navy, son of Ohio and a true PATRIOT.”
Miller announced his campaign for the 16th district of Ohio on Friday, writing on Twitter: “I’m running for Congress to defend the inhabitants of northeast Ohio. They voted overwhelmingly on the America First agenda. But their congressman betrayed them when voted for the impeachment of President Trump. “
Trump did not explicitly mention Gonzalez’s vote for impeachment. “Current MP Anthony Gonzalez should not represent the people of the 16th district because he does not represent his interests or his heart. Max Miller has my complete and total endorsement!”
Trump has signaled that he wants to shape the future of the party, targeting Republicans he considers insufficiently loyal. Looking to make his influence felt in 2022, he hopes to prove to critics and supporters that he is the Republican Party’s most effective puppeteer – a role he is likely to remind the party during his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday.
Gonzalez’s decision to join just nine other House Republicans and all House Democrats for Trump’s impeachment in January unearthed deep anger in his Ohio district, starting a localized struggle over the future of the Republican Party that puts the a two-term congressman against angry voters eager to expel any Republican who crosses the former president.
But Gonzalez, who was easily re-elected to the red chair in November after winning the district in 2018, remained defiant in the face of criticism, telling local media that he does not regret the vote and is willing to lose his seat because of the decision .
Since he voted for impeachment, he has continued to make his opposition to Trump heard. Earlier this month, Gonzalez characterized the swearing phone call from Trump to Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, while the U.S. Capitol was under attack on January 6 as problematic for the former president.
“I think that reflects the former president’s mentality,” said Gonzalez. “He did not regret seeing his uncompromisingly loyal vice president or Congress under attack from the crowd he inspired. In fact, it looks like he was happy about it or at least liked the scenes that were horrible for most Americans across the country. “
Miller, who says on his campaign website that he was a senior adviser to the former president, was identified as a former Trump campaign advisor in a 2018 Washington Post story about the Presidential Personnel Office being insufficient, inexperienced and a source of jobs for friends and family, employing advisers who had obtained their jobs because of work on the Trump campaign, despite their questionable origins.
Citing police records, the Post reported that Miller – an office clerk – had been charged with assault and resisting arrest in 2007 after a fight with another man, a case that was later closed.
“When we grow up, everyone makes mistakes,” Miller told the Post at the time. “Who I was in the past is not who I am now.” CNN has not independently confirmed the Post’s reports.
A then White House official told the Post at the time that Miller’s track record serving in the Marine Corps Reserve “speaks volumes about his willingness to serve his country.”
Gonzalez is not the only Republican that Trump can aim for in 2022.
CNN reported last month that Trump is focusing his political energy on the target of Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming – the House’s third Republican, who also voted for his impeachment – and he promised to campaign against Georgia Republican Governor Brian Kemp in 2022, whom he accused of not doing enough to contest his defeat in the state elections.
In another sign of Trump’s imminent influence in the intermediate tests, former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia announced earlier this week that he would not launch a campaign for the 2022 Senate, although he recently filed documents to do so. The apparent reversal came shortly after his recent visit to Palm Beach, Florida, where he played golf with Trump, said a person familiar with Georgia Republican programming.
CNN’s Dan Merica, Donald Judd, Kate Bennett and Clare Foran contributed to this report.
.Source
Related
