Former President Donald Trump remains furious at the top Republicans who criticized him, although some advisers insist he should target President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders, according to people familiar with the matter.
Senator John Thune, the second Republican in the Senate, and longtime Republican politician Karl Rove are among the targets of Trump’s anger, these people said.
These people refused to be identified to speak freely.
Trump spokesman Jason Miller responded to CNBC’s request to comment on this story by email: “False news. We are focused on winning back the House and Senate in 2022.”
CNBC asked whom the Republicans Trump intended to target during the mid-term primaries after the former president said he plans to support several primary candidates who support his Make America Great Again agenda.
Currently, there are 20 seats in the Senate held by Republicans, including four who are not running, which will be up for grabs in 2022. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is the only one of seven Republicans who voted to condemn Trump in his second impeachment trial for reelection next year. The whole house is at stake, too.
Trump’s anger at the Republicans who criticized him was most publicly evident in his statement criticizing Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Whom Trump called a “severe, taciturn and serious political hack”.
Trump’s comments came after McConnell, even after voting to absolve the former president in his second impeachment trial, said Trump was responsible for the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill. Trump said in response that he plans to support primary candidates in the 2022 mid-term elections that support him.
Advisers told Trump that many Republican voters, who were polled by the former president’s strategists, do not want to see total war in the Republican Party. Instead, they prefer that Trump focus his attacks on Biden and the top Democrats.
Senator Rick Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told his associates that he wants to convince McConnell to get involved with Trump so that the two can resolve their differences before mid-term, according to a Republican Party adviser. Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., is planning to meet Trump this weekend at his resort in Mar-a-Lago to try to play the peacemaker.
Chris Hartline, an NRSC spokesman, told CNBC that Scott “is not involved in mediating anything. He is focused on the future and reconquering the Senate. He spends every day raising money and talking about the importance of saving this country. by stopping the Democrats’ mad run for socialism and loss of freedom and prosperity. “
“I don’t know if he spoke to the leader recently, but we haven’t talked about private conversations he has had with other senators,” added Hartline.
Representatives for McConnell and Scott did not return requests for comment.
Still, Trump’s allies are not backing off from the idea that support for his agenda will help Republicans in the primaries.
“When you know you have President Trump’s muscle behind you, and all of the President’s loyal and dedicated followers, and even as important or more important, your first policies for America, that will be hard to beat,” Roy Bailey , a Texas businessman and former head of Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee between the campaign and the Republican National Committee, told CNBC.
Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., A staunch supporter of Trump in Congress, tweeted that Republicans will be rejected by the party base if they don’t adopt the ex-president’s agenda. Gaetz called for the removal of Republican leader in the House, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., After she voted to impeach Trump for inciting the January 6 deadly riot on Capitol Hill.
Rove has emerged as a top Republican critic of Trump, and the former president is not happy about that, one person said. Rove, a former senior adviser to former President George W. Bush, wrote a recent article in the Wall Street Journal defending his longtime ally McConnell and holding the former president directly accountable for Senate Georgie’s second round.
“Mr. Trump lost those seats in Georgia when he made his campaign appearances there not about the need for checks and balances in the next Biden government, but instead about his anger at losing the presidential election,” wrote Rove on Wednesday .
Trump is also angry at Thune, who is running for reelection next year, someone else said. As for Thune, the South Dakota Republican voted with Trump more than 90% of the time, according to data from FiveThirtyEight. But he was also a vocal critic of Trump regarding the Capitol uprising.
Trump had warned in December that Thune would face a primary challenge after the senator said efforts to challenge the results of the Electoral College “would fall like a dog” in the Senate.
However, the Cook Political Report considers Thune’s race to be a “solid Republican”.
After voting to absolve the president, Thune said: “What former President Trump did to undermine faith in our electoral system and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power is inexcusable.”
Thune criticized Republican activists in a recent interview with the Associated Press. He said these activists had engaged in “culture cancellation” by rushing to censor Republican lawmakers who voted in favor of Trump’s impeachment.
Thune, according to the AP, said he plans to help candidates “who don’t go out and talk about conspiracies and that sort of thing”.
“At the grassroots level, there are a lot of people who want to see candidates like Trump,” he said. “But I think we are going to look for candidates who are elected.”