'Traitors and patriots': Republican push to keep
Trump in power seems doomed
Senators decline to defend electoral college ploy on
TV
Democrats and GOP leaders to block gambit aimed at
party base
Martin
Pengelly in New York
@MartinPengelly
Sun 3 Jan
2021 15.27 GMT
All 12
Republican senators who have pledged not to ratify the electoral college
results on Wednesday, and thereby refuse to confirm Joe Biden’s resounding
victory over Donald Trump in the presidential election, declined to defend
their move on television, a CNN host said on Sunday.
“It all
recalls what Ulysses S Grant once wrote in 1861,” Jake Tapper said to camera on
his show, State of the Union, before quoting a letter the union general wrote
at the outset of a civil war he won before becoming president himself: ‘There
are [but] two parties now: traitors and patriots.’
“How would
you describe the parties today?” Tapper asked.
The attempt
to overturn Trump’s defeat seems doomed to fail, essentially a piece of
political theatre mounted by party grandees eager to court supporters loyal to
the president before, in some cases, mounting their own runs for the White
House.
Nonetheless
on Saturday Ted Cruz of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin led a slate of 11
senators and senators-elect in calling for “an emergency 10-day audit” of
results in states in which the president continues to claim mass electoral
fraud, despite failing to provide evidence and repeatedly losing in court.
The
senators followed Josh Hawley of Missouri – like Cruz thought likely to run for
president in 2024 – in pledging to object to the electoral college result. A
majority of Republicans in the House are also expected to object, after staging
a rare Saturday night call with Trump and White House chief of staff Mark
Meadows in order to plan their move.
Democrats
control the House and senior Republicans in the Senate also stand opposed to
the attempt to disenfranchise millions of voters – many of them African
Americans in key swing states – thereby seemingly guaranteeing that attempt
will fail. Nonetheless, on Saturday Vice-President Mike Pence, who will preside
over the ratification process, welcomed the move by the group led by Cruz.
A spokesman
for Biden, Michael Gwin, said: “This stunt won’t change the fact that
President-elect Biden will be sworn in on 20 January, and these baseless claims
have already been examined and dismissed by Trump’s own attorney general,
dozens of courts, and election officials from both parties.”
Republicans
opposed to Trump were forthright. Mitt Romney, the 2012 presidential nominee
now a senator from Utah, said: “The egregious ploy to reject electors may
enhance the political ambition of some, but dangerously threatens our
democratic republic.
“…More
Americans participated in this election than ever before, and they made their
choice. President Trump’s lawyers made their case before scores of courts; in
every instance, they failed. The justice department found no evidence of
irregularity sufficient to overturn the election. The Presidential Voter Fraud
Commission disbanded without finding such evidence.
“Adding to
this ill-conceived endeavour by some in Congress is the president’s call for
his supporters to come to the Capitol on the day when this matter is to be
debated and decided. This has the predictable potential to lead to disruption,
and worse.”
Encouraged
by Trump, far-right groups including the “western chauvinist” Proud Boys are
expected to gather in Washington on Wednesday.
Romney was
echoed by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania, a
battleground state. Hawley responded with a statement which decried “shameless
personal attacks”.
Georgia,
another state in which Trump refuses to accept defeat, goes to the polls in vital
Senate runoffs on Tuesday.
Stacey
Abrams, a former gubernatorial candidate in Georgia who now promotes voting
rights, told ABC’s This Week: “It’s always dangerous to undermine the integrity
of elections without evidence.”
Abrams lost
her 2018 gubernatorial race to Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate who also
ran the election as secretary of state. Alleging improprieties, Abrams refused
to concede. Asked about Republican charges that Trump’s objection to the
presidential result is no different, she said: “Well, it’s not simply different
circumstances. It’s apples and bowling balls.
“I pointed
out that there were a series of actions taken that impeded the ability of
voters to cast their ballots. And in almost every one of those circumstances,
the courts agreed, as did the state legislature.”
By
contrast, she added, “President Trump has lost every single one of his
challenges in the state of Georgia and he has no evidence.”
Shortly
before the turn of the year, after Hawley announced his move, Ben Sasse of
Nebraska – another senator thought to nurse presidential ambitions – issued a
stinging rebuke, saying: “Adults don’t point a loaded gun at the heart of
legitimate self-government.”
“We have a
deep cancer in American politics,” he added. “Both Republicans and Democrats
are growing more distrustful of the basic processes and procedures that we
follow.”
The
senators who came out for Trump on Saturday made the same point, pointing to
public polling. The argument was in bad faith – blame for such distrust weighs
heaviest by far on the White House. But on Sunday, CNN also played remarks by
Hawley from January, during Trump’s impeachment.
“The
consequences to the republic of overturning an election because you don’t like
the result,” he said then, “and because you believe that that election was
somehow corrupted, when in fact, the evidence shows that it was not … that’s an
interesting approach. I think it’s crazy, frankly.”
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