On Thursday, as the Electoral College continued to seem like it was slipping from Donald Trump’s grasp, the president took to Twitter and to the White House press room to demand that vote counts be halted and make false and imprecise claims of voter fraud.
This is in keeping with his general campaign strategy of undermining the integrity of the American election, which began immediately after Election Day when he falsely and prematurely declared himself the winner in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
It’s one thing for a presidential candidate to announce that the election was stolen by fraud if he is not allowed to remain in office, though. It is quite another to undercut election results so successfully that it allows the loser to retain power. In order to do that, Trump would need the support of institutional actors. But it appeared on Thursday that his inner circle was starting to realize they were not getting that support.
On Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, “The total lack of action from virtually all of the ‘2024 GOP hopefuls’ is pretty amazing. They have a perfect platform to show that they’re willing & able to fight but they will cower to the media mob instead.” Less than an hour later, Donald Jr.’s brother Eric tweeted, “Where is the GOP?! Our voters will never forget…”
Where is the GOP? For the most part they have been quiet, but a few have spoken out against Trump’s efforts to destabilize our democracy. Here is a running tally of which Republicans have condemned Trump’s rhetoric, which ones are publicly supporting him, and which ones seem to be hedging their bets.
Team TrumpRepublican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
On Thursday, the head of the RNC echoed Trump’s claims that Democrats were trying to “steal” the election, saying, “We are keeping up the fight against Democrat attacks on a fair election.” She also suggested to Fox News that there was something nefarious about the vote count: “We support the voters that stood hours in line that feel like they’re being disenfranchised by votes being found in the middle of the night. We just had it happen in Georgia, some of our poll watchers are seeing some suspicious activity and we need to understand that.”
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
The Georgia Republican, whose wife Callista is ambassador to the Vatican, has been vocal that Trump should not accept any of the current results. On Thursday, one of Gingrich’s tweets was labeled as possibly “misleading” by Twitter as he claimed, “It is increasingly clear that Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are all being stolen by Democrats and the research is almost certainly going to yield far more votes stolen than Biden’s current margins.” This followed remarks on Fox News on Wednesday morning suggesting without a shred of evidence that criminal fraud might have been committed in Philadelphia, that Nevada was “’set up to be stolen by the Democrats,” that Trump should “be prepared to file suit in every single state” to contest the results, and that he should ask allies in the Senate to investigate the vote on his behalf.
Radio Host Rush Limbaugh
On Wednesday, Limbaugh echoed Trump’s declaration of victory, saying, “Donald Trump was reelected last night. Time will show us this. You know this. When they stopped counting, it means they’re looking for Democrat votes.”
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi
On Wednesday and Thursday, Bondi—who was part of Trump’s impeachment defense team and, during her time as attorney general in Florida, declined to bring charges against Trump University—has been a key voice in his legal team’s false allegations of voter fraud, including claims that there has been “evidence of cheating” and “fake ballots.”
Former 2016 Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski
Lewandowski has also been pressing false claims of fraud. On Thursday, he doxed an attorney defending the city of Philadelphia against Trump lawsuits on Twitter.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani
Eric Trump said Giuliani was “really leading the legal effort.” Giuliani has been vocal about making unsubstantiated claims of stolen votes and has said that 125,000 votes in Pennsylvania should be indiscriminately “deducted from the count.”
Team Democratic ElectionKentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell
On Wednesday the top Republican senator said: “Claiming you’ve won the election is different from finishing the counting.”
Ohio Sen. Rob Portman
“Under our Constitution, state legislatures set the rules & states administer our elections. We should respect that process and ensure that all ballots cast in accordance with state laws are counted,” Portman said on Wednesday. “It’s that simple.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
“I speak as a former U.S. Attorney, there is no basis to make the argument tonight,” Christie said on ABC News following Trump’s premature victory declaration. “There just isn’t,” he added. “I disagree with what he did tonight.”
Sen. Marco Rubio
The Florida senator on Wednesday was fairly unequivocal, tweeting: “Taking days to count legally cast votes is NOT fraud and court challenges to votes cast after the legal voting deadline is NOT suppression.”
Utah Gov.-Elect Spencer Cox
Cox was also forceful in denouncing Trump’s rhetoric on Wednesday, saying, “Just a little reminder that there is nothing nefarious about it taking a few days to count all legitimate votes.” He also said, “I have a deep concern every time we call into question the process of elections without any evidence.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger
The Illinois Congressman on Wednesday told Trump to “stop, full stop” his claims that the vote is being stolen and calls for the count to be halted. “Bottom line is we cannot undermine our election integrity,” Kinzinger said. “I’m certainly concerned that, you know, comments like this can spark violence,” he added.
Conservative Commentator Erick Erickson
Erickson said on Twitter on Wednesday, “Losing an election is not a coup.”
Conservative Commentator Ben Shapiro
“No, Trump has not already won the election, and it is deeply irresponsible for him to say he has,” Shapiro said on Twitter on Wednesday.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
On Wednesday, Huckabee defended a full vote count on Fox News. “If the president loses on that front, then he loses,” he said. “We win by ballots, not by bullets … and we’ve got to keep reminding ourselves of that.”
Republican Strategist Karl Rove
Rove said on Fox News on Wednesday that Trump “has the bigger hand to play here, and the bigger hand to play is to have confidence in the system.” He added: “Nobody’s going to be able to create large numbers of fake votes and somehow submit them into the system.”
Republican Election Lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg
On CNN Wednesday, Ginsberg responded to Trump’s victory declaration by calling it a “distressing moment” for him. “What the President said tonight is not only unprecedented and it not only lacks any basis in the law, it really is a disservice to all the other men and women who are on the ballot as Republicans today,” he added.
Team HedgeHouse Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
On Wednesday, McCarthy defended Trump’s premature declaration of victory, saying, “The people vote, up until Election Day, not the days after. That’s exactly what the president was expressing.”
Former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
On Thursday, Haley tweeted ambiguously: “We all owe [Trump] for his leadership of conservative victories for Senate, House, & state legislatures. He and the American people deserve transparency & fairness as the votes are counted. The law must be followed. We have to keep the faith that the truth will prevail.”
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey
On Thursday afternoon, Toomey told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he didn’t see a “huge case of fraud that needs to be immediately addressed” in the Pennsylvania vote count and praised “the vast majority of election officials” in his state for being “conscientious, honest and doing a great job.” Simultaneously, though, he endorsed the Trump campaign’s complaints that it was not being permitted to adequately observe the vote count in the state, and said he was hopeful that the Supreme Court would reverse the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and decide not to allow the counting of late-arriving mail ballots that have been segregated. “I am concerned about the lack of transparency, a lack of opportunity to observe what’s going on,” he told Tapper. “You know when someone goes down that road of precluding observation, it makes you wonder why—that’s not, that’s not encouraging.” He did conclude, however, by suggesting that whoever wins, the loser should accept the final outcome: “When we know it’s over, then both sides have to accept the outcome.”
Vice President Mike Pence
The vice president spoke immediately after Trump on Wednesday morning. Pence attempted to reframe Trump’s claim that counting the votes was equivalent to stealing the election as an effort to protect “the integrity of the vote.” At the same time, he mouthed a defense of the democratic process. “The right to vote has been at the center of the democracy since the founding of this nation,” Pence said on Wednesday. After Trump on Thursday spoke from the White House and repeated his false claims that the election was being stolen from him, Pence hedged further, tweeting: “I Stand With President @realDonaldTrump . We must count every LEGAL vote.”
Former Pennsylvania Senator and CNN analyst Rick Santorum
On Wednesday, Santorum criticized Trump: “The idea of using the word ‘fraud’ being committed by people counting votes is wrong. They’re counting the absentee and mail-in ballots right now. And some counties have stopped counting. Why have they stopped counting? Because it’s 2:48 in the morning!” By Thursday, Santorum was claiming Trump’s positioning hasn’t been that bad, saying, “I give credit frankly to both sides, because I think the president, you can say, well he’s tweeting everything. … For Donald Trump’s he’s being fairly restrained.”
from Slate Magazine https://ift.tt/2U0fczM
via IFTTT
沒有留言:
張貼留言