Ohio House Republican, Calling Trump ‘a Cancer,’
Bows Out of 2022
Representative Anthony Gonzalez, one of the 10 House
Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, is the first of the group to
retire rather than face a stiff primary challenge.
By Jonathan
Martin
Sept. 16,
2021
WASHINGTON
— Calling former President Donald J. Trump “a cancer for the country,”
Representative Anthony Gonzalez, Republican of Ohio, said in an interview on
Thursday that he would not run for re-election in 2022, ceding his seat after
just two terms in Congress rather than compete against a Trump-backed primary
opponent.
Mr.
Gonzalez is the first, but perhaps not the last, of the 10 House Republicans
who voted to impeach Mr. Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to retire rather
than face ferocious primaries next year in a party still in thrall to the
former president.
The
congressman, who has two young children, emphasized that he was leaving in
large part because of family considerations and the difficulties that come with
living between two cities. But he made clear that the strain had only grown
worse since his impeachment vote, after which he was deluged with threats and
feared for the safety of his wife and children.
Mr.
Gonzalez said that quality-of-life issues had been paramount in his decision.
He recounted an “eye-opening” moment this year: when he and his family were
greeted at the Cleveland airport by two uniformed police officers, part of
extra security precautions taken after the impeachment vote.
“That’s one
of those moments where you say, ‘Is this really what I want for my family when
they travel, to have my wife and kids escorted through the airport?’” he said.
Mr.
Gonzalez, who turns 37 on Saturday, was the sort of Republican recruit the
party once prized. A Cuban American who starred as an Ohio State wide receiver,
he was selected in the first round of the N.F.L. draft and then earned an
M.B.A. at Stanford after his football career was cut short by injuries. He
claimed his Northeast Ohio seat in his first bid for political office.
Mr.
Gonzalez, a conservative, largely supported the former president’s agenda. Yet
he started breaking with Mr. Trump and House Republican leaders when they
sought to block the certification of last year’s presidential vote, and he was
horrified by Jan. 6 and its implications.
Still, he
insisted he could have prevailed in what he acknowledged would have been a
“brutally hard primary” against Max Miller, a former Trump White House aide who
was endorsed by the former president in February.
Yet as Mr.
Gonzalez sat on a couch in his House office, most of his colleagues still at
home for the prolonged summer recess, he acknowledged that he could not bear
the prospect of winning if it meant returning to a Trump-dominated House
Republican caucus.
“Politically
the environment is so toxic, especially in our own party right now,” he said.
“You can fight your butt off and win this thing, but are you really going to be
happy? And the answer is, probably not.”
For the
Ohioan, Jan. 6 was “a line-in-the-sand moment” and Mr. Trump represents nothing
less than a threat to American democracy.
“I don’t
believe he can ever be president again,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “Most of my
political energy will be spent working on that exact goal.”
Mr.
Gonzalez said there had been some uncertainty after the assault on the Capitol
over whether Republican leaders would continue to bow to Mr. Trump.
But the
ouster of Representative Liz Cheney from her leadership post; the continued
obeisance of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader; and the
recent decision to invite Mr. Trump to be the keynote speaker at a major House
Republican fund-raiser were clarifying. At least in Washington, this is still
Mr. Trump’s party.
“This is
the direction that we’re going to go in for the next two years and potentially
four, and it’s going to make Trump the center of fund-raising efforts and
political outreach,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “That’s not something I’m going to be
part of.”
His
decision to leave rather than fight, however, ensures that the congressional
wing of the party will become only more thoroughly Trumpified. And it will
raise questions about whether other Trump critics in the House will follow him
to the exits. At the top of that watch list: Ms. Cheney and Representative Adam
Kinzinger of Illinois, who are both serving on the otherwise
Democratic-dominated panel investigating the Capitol riot.
Asked how
he could hope to cleanse the party of Mr. Trump if he himself was not willing
to confront the former president in a proxy fight next year against Mr. Miller,
Mr. Gonzalez insisted that there were still Republicans in office who would
defend “the fundamentals of democracy.”
With more
ardor, he argued that Mr. Trump has less of a following among grass-roots
Republicans than the party’s leaders believe, particularly when it comes to
whom the rank-and-file want to lead their 2024 ticket.
“Where I
see a big gap is, most people that I speak to back home agree with the policies
but they also want us to move on from the person” and “the sort of resentment
politics that has taken over the party,” Mr. Gonzalez said.
Congressional
maps are set to be redrawn this year, and it’s unclear what Mr. Gonzalez’s
district, the 16th, will look like afterward. But he said he would probably not
take sides in the primary to succeed him, which is now likely to include
additional candidates.
He said he
would remain in the House through the end of his term unless something changed
with his family.
Mr.
Gonzalez was emphatic that the threats were not why he was leaving — the
commute was more trying, he said — but in a matter-of-fact fashion, he
recounted people online saying things like, “We’re coming to your house.”
In
accordance with the advice House officials gave to all members, Mr. Gonzalez
had a security consultant walk through his home to ensure it was well
protected.
“It’s a
reflection of where our politics looked like it was headed post-Jan. 6,” he
said.
Neither Mr.
Trump nor any of his intermediaries have sought to push him out of the race,
Mr. Gonzalez said.
Asked about
Mr. Trump’s inevitable crowing over his exit from the primary — “good
riddance,” the former president said in a Friday morning statement that
criticized the congressman’s “ill-informed and otherwise very stupid
impeachment vote” — Mr. Gonzalez
dismissed him.
“I haven’t
cared what he says or thinks since Jan. 6, outside when he continues to lie
about the election, which I have a problem with,” he said.
What
clearly does bother him, though, are the Republicans who continue to abet Mr.
Trump’s election falsehoods, acts of appeasement that he said were morally
wrong and politically foolhardy after the party lost both chambers of Congress
and the White House under the former president’s leadership.
“We’ve
learned the wrong lesson as a party,” Mr. Gonzalez said, “but beyond that, and
more importantly, it’s horribly irresponsible and destructive for the country.”
Jonathan
Martin is a national political correspondent. He has reported on a range of
topics, including the 2016 presidential election and several state and
congressional races, while also writing for Sports, Food and the Book Review. He
is also a CNN political analyst. @jmartnyt
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