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The insurgency on the U.S. Capitol was both staggering and predictable, the result of a Republican Party that repeatedly allowed President Donald Trump’s destructive behavior.
When Trump was a presidential candidate in 2016, Republican officials ignored his call for supporters to “drop the shit” on protesters. Less than a year after taking office, GOP leaders argued that he was taken out of context when he said there were “very good people” on both sides of a rally. deadly white supremacist.
Last summer, most party leaders looked away when Trump forced hundreds of peaceful protesters out of a protest near the White House so he could pose with a Bible outside a church.
But the violent siege of Capitol Hill offers a new, and perhaps final, moment of account for the GOP. The party’s usual apologies for Trump – he’s not a typical politician and doesn’t care about the intricacies of Washington – have failed in the face of images of crowds occupying some of the most sacred spaces in American democracy.
The party, which has been defined for the past four years by its loyalty to Trump, has started to recalibrate in the wake of Wednesday’s chaos.
One of Trump’s closest allies in Congress, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, has said “enough is enough.”
Representative Nancy Mace, RS.C., said the achievements of Trump in power “have been dashed today.”
Trump’s former acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, now special envoy to Northern Ireland, has joined a growing number of resigning administration officials. “I can not do it. I can’t stay, ”Mulvaney told CNBC Thursday. “Those who choose to stay, and I have spoken with some of them, choose to stay because they fear the president will put someone worse.
Stephanie Grisham, chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump and former White House press secretary, has tendered her resignation. Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger, White House Social Secretary Rickie Niceta and Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews have also resigned, officials said.
For the party to move forward, it will have to face the reality that Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes and a 306-232 electoral college margin, a certified result. by Congress early Thursday when it finished. accept all electoral votes.
Trump admitted that his tenure was coming to an end, but not that he had actually lost.
“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts confirm this, there will nonetheless be an orderly transition on January 20,” he said in a statement minutes after Congress certified the vote. “I always said that we would continue our fight so that only legal votes are counted. While this marks the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it is only the beginning of our fight to make America great again!
Former Republican President George W. Bush described the violent crowd as “a sickening and heartbreaking spectacle.” He declined to call Trump or his allies, but the implication was clear when Bush said the siege “was undertaken by people whose passions have been ignited by lies and false hopes.”
Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of the top Republicans in the House and the daughter of Bush’s vice president, was much more direct in a Fox News interview.
“There is no doubt that the president formed the crowd. The president incited the crowd, ”Cheney said. “He lit the flame.
Bush and Cheney were already among a small group of Republican officials willing to sometimes condemn Trump’s most outrageous behavior. The overwhelming majority of the GOP have been much more reserved, eager to keep Trump’s fiery base on their side.
Still, Trump’s grip on his party appeared somewhat weakened when members of Congress returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday evening, after spending several hours hiding in safe places after being evacuated. Before their departure, a handful of Republican senators and more than 100 members of the Republican House were expected to oppose the vote to certify Biden’s victory.
It was an initiative led by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, each with their own presidential ambitions for 2024, despite the objection of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who warned that American democracy “Would enter a death spiral” if Congress rejected the results of the national elections.
By the time they resumed debate, however, much of the energy behind this extraordinary push had collapsed. Several Republicans have completely dropped their objections. Hawley and Cruz didn’t, but they offered reduced arguments.
Hawley condemned the violence of the day, but also called for an investigation into “the irregularities and fraud”. Earlier today, his hometown newspaper The Kansas City Star ran an op-ed accusing Hawley of “having blood on his hands” for allowing Trump’s false claims.
Other Republicans were clearly more concerned about the violence of the day and the events leading up to it.
“Dear MAGA, I am one of you,” tweeted former White House aide Alyssa Farah. “But I need you to hear me: the election was NOT stolen. We’ve lost.”
Jefferson Thomas, who led Trump’s Colorado campaign, expressed regret for joining Trump’s team in the first place, calling Wednesday’s events “embarrassment to our country.”
“This is not what I imagined when I signed up for #MAGA. If I had known then that this was how it would end, I would never have joined him, ”he wrote on Twitter.
While there were obvious cracks in Trump’s grip on the Republican Party, his fiercest critics came from a familiar group of frequent critics.
Former Trump Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who denounced the president as a threat to the Constitution last year, described the violent attack on Capitol Hill as “an effort to subjugate American democracy by the regime crowd “and” was instigated by Mr. Trump. ”
“His use of the presidency to destroy confidence in our elections and to poison our citizens has been made possible by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles of cowardice,” said Mattis.
Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as Trump’s White House communications director in 2017, often has harsh words for Trump. But he offered his toughest Wednesday to Trump’s Republican facilitators.
“Republican elected officials who still support Trump must be tried alongside him for treason,” he tweeted.
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Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina contributed to this report.
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