“If President Trump decides he’s running, absolutely the RNC needs to back him, 100%,” said RNC committeewoman Michele Fiore.
QUICK FACTS:
- The Republican Party on Friday censured U.S. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for joining Congress’ investigation of the Jan 6, 2021 Capitol riot and Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, calling the probe an attack on “legitimate political discourse,” Reuters reports.
- The resolution—arguing Cheney and Kinzinger damaged Republican efforts to win back majorities in Congress—passed on a voice vote of 168 members of the RNC while they were gathering for their winter meeting, the yes votes being overwhelming with only a handful of nays.
- The resolution censuring Cheney and Kinzinger was approved at a Republican National Committee meeting in Salt Lake City, where the two were accused of “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
- The measure said that the RNC will “immediately cease any and all support of them.”
- “Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger crossed a line. They chose to join Nancy Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said during Friday’s resolution.
- The RNC, which controls the party’s rules and infrastructure, has made clear that they will follow Donald Trump’s lead, as his political interests remain a focus for the party, according to The Associated Press.
R.N.C STANDS BEHIND TRUMP:
- “If President Trump decides he’s running, absolutely the RNC needs to back him, 100%,” said Michele Fiore, an RNC committeewoman.
- Republican officials from across the country are gathering in Utah this week for the RNC’s winter meeting, though Trump is such a powerful force with the GOP base that he probably wouldn’t need the party’s help to become the nominee, AP notes.
BACKGROUND:
- Mike Pence recently said Trump was “wrong” in claiming that Pence could have overturned the results of the 2020 election when he presided over the congressional affirmation of Joe Biden’s disputed electoral college win.
- Trump had been pointing out how Democrats’ recent efforts to pass election law that would, according to Vox, “make it clear that a vice president is unable to discard election results, and thus unable to overturn an election,” demonstrates that VPs do in fact have the right to do so.
- Pence disagreed with Trump on Friday, saying he had “no right to overturn the election” and that his former boss was “wrong” to suggest otherwise.
- Trump argued that if U.S. VPs did not have the power to change presidential election results in the Senate, it would not make sense why Democrats were “desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election.”
- “Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome,” Trump continued, adding Democrats “now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, [Pence] didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election!”
