Republican Party leaders condemned him for helping to incite the disturbances that threatened their lives and ended up with five others. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy said Trump had “responsibility” and asked him to accept the blame for the January 6 attacks. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who has not spoken to Trump since December 15, made no secret of his disgust at the former president’s role in the chaos that broke out on Capitol Hill. Ten Republican House members voted to impeach Trump.
But that was then. Now, the GOP is engaged in a delicate dance to keep Trump and his constituency in the fold, although it does not appear to be much in debt to him. Without Trump’s cooperation, the party fears losing a fund-raising giant as it turns to a half-term cycle in which it hopes to regain a majority in each chamber of Congress.
“What you are seeing is not a particularly shocking movement, which is taking the path of least resistance,” said a Republican Party strategist. “There is no real benefit in fighting this war if you want a future in politics.”
In the weeks since the Capitol revolt, top Republicans have tried to get closer to Trump while preserving some appearance of distance – an online division that involves a mixture of subservience and detachment while tending to opposite wings of the party.
Republican National Committee chairman Ronna McDaniel tried to strike a balance on Wednesday. In an interview with the Associated Press that morning, she reaffirmed that the Republican Party would refuse to put her finger on the scale for any candidate in the party’s next presidential primaries – a declaration of neutrality that once again raised questions about how, or if, the party plans to use Trump in the Republicans’ half-term campaign to reclaim the House and Senate.
“The plans are still being discussed and we are working with members on different options in the future, ”said Michele Fiore, a member of the Nevada Republican Party national committee.
McDaniel later clarified on Fox News that the RNC has statutes that prevent him from endorsing candidates in the Republican primaries. But his comments were in contrast to 2020, when Trump relied heavily on Republican Party officials to prevent a trio of opponents from gaining strength in the Republican primaries and would likely demand his loyalty if he pursued another White House candidacy in 2024.
Not long after his interview was published, however, the president of the RNC was siding with Trump, issuing a statement that fiercely condemned Trump’s impeachment trial.
“Make no mistake: Democratic leaders’ revenge on President Trump has always included impeachment, with many promising to do so even before he took office,” she said, adding that the post-presidential impeachment trial was “unconstitutional” and “a distraction from the important issues that Americans want Congress to focus on.”
In another sign that the party sees Trump as a tool for survival, McCarthy put on a brave face for a lunchtime meeting with the former president on Thursday – just weeks after it was reported that the former president called the main Republican of the House “p —-. ”In the golden lobby of Trump’s property in Mar-a-Lago, the two men posed for a photo and publicly pledged to work together to put the Republican Party back in control of the House in 2022.
“A united conservative movement will strengthen the bonds of our citizens and defend the freedoms on which our country was founded,” McCarthy said in a statement after the meeting.
The meeting on Trump’s lawn, along with the smiling photo that followed, marked a dramatic turnaround for McCarthy, who was questioning his colleagues about whether to ask the former president to step down two weeks ago.
But even as McCarthy was considering whether to create some distance, his political team was still using a fundraising website for next year’s midterm elections under the domain name “Trump’s Majority”.
Trump’s dominance over the GOP is due to a variety of factors. Chief among them is what happened to the party when it was not entirely in agreement with it. The day before the Capitol riots, Republicans lost two critical seats in the Georgia Senate. And, looking back, party members place almost all the blame on Trump for putting so much more energy into questioning his own electoral outcome in the state than driving the two candidates down.
“In Georgia, there is no doubt – and no one should say otherwise – he is the reason we lost,” said a Republican Party official. “I have never been more confident in a post-election analysis.”
Trump’s advisers say the former president will be active in the next half-term races. And for that reason, some Republicans have praised efforts to give it a voice and ensure that its supporters still feel at home in the Republican Party.
“We have to be neutral and we have rules that require us to be neutral. But in the same way, we wouldn’t be smart if we discounted those 74 million votes, ”said Barnett, referring to the number of votes cast for Trump in November.
“We certainly have to find a way to integrate these people and these voters, because we cannot win without them,” he added.
But another explanation for Trump’s dominance over the party is the revenge he always seeks. Even though he moved to Palm Beach without his Twitter account, he made it clear that he plans to exercise his power against any Republican who opposes him.
After impeachment votes in the House, Trump was informed by advisers about each of the 10 Republicans who asked for his deposition. And since then, he and his allies have directed their anger at one particular Republican – the third member of the Republican Party in the House, Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
Trump’s friend and ally, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Flew north to Cheyenne, Wyoming. On Thursday to speak out against his colleague, and the Trump team commissioned a poll that painted a bleak picture of Cheney’s re-election prospects, then promptly blew up the results for the press.
“Liz Cheney’s decision to impeach President Trump makes her extremely vulnerable,” said a memo from researcher John McLaughlin. “The strong voter sentiment in this poll suggests that there may be similar results for other Republicans who voted for impeachment.”
– with reporting by Melanie Zanona