Some Republicans and conservatives, faced with a likely government shutdown due to Donald Trump’s refusal to sign a bill his Treasury Secretary negotiated, are turning against the defeated one-term president.
Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger said today that Trump is peddling a ‘scam’ meant to fuel ‘violence’ in his supporters by claiming Congress could still overturn the election by rejecting the Electoral College results on January 6.
‘It is a scam and it is going to disappoint the people that believe this election was stolen, that think this is an opportunity to change it,’ he told CNN.
Trump is pushing for Republican in Congress – specifically senators – to jump on board with a plan to challenge Electoral College votes in five swing states that went blue last month.
The effort is being headed in the House by Alabama Republican Mo Brooks.
He needs at least one senator to challenge the results in order to bring the motion up for debate in the joint session next month where Congress will most surely certify the election for President-elect Joe Biden.
Kinzinger called the election ‘legitimate’, claiming there is no proof of widespread voter fraud and suggested there are no channels left for Trump to overturn the results.
‘If you convince people that, you know, Congress can change a legitimate election and everything was stolen, there is a deep state theory driving this that Satan runs the government,’ the Illinois Republican said. ‘You can see people driven to violence so I’m concerned about that.’
‘We talk about the Constitution, and we have to follow it and I’m sorry if that doesn’t mean the outcome was what you wanted,’ Kinzinger continued.
Saturday, Kinzinger fired back at Trump online, tweeting ‘My God. Trying to burn the place down on the way out because you can’t handle losing. No evidence, nothing but your temper tantrum and crazy conspiracies. Embarrassing. #RestoreOurGOP’
Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera is also slamming Trump for his behavior since losing the election to Biden.
In a tweet last night, Rivera wrote that he had supported Trump for four years while the president was ‘assailed by leftist creeps who conjured the Russian Hoax to wreck his presidency’.
‘Sadly he lost a bitterly contested election. Shit happens’ he continued. ‘However since he has behaved like an entitled frat boy.’
The conservative commentator, a longtime ally and friend of the outgoing president, has become increasingly critical of Trump in recent weeks, blasting his attempts to undermine the integrity of the election by launching a series of legal challenges and refusing to concede the race.
Earlier this week, Rivera lambasted Trump for leaving Americans ‘adrift’ by going on holiday to his Mar-A-Lago resort while the $900 billion coronavirus relief bill is in limbo.
‘He’s threatening a veto. He’s gone on Christmas holiday. What the hell are we supposed to do now? The president has said this is no good. What about the defense authorization part of this? What about paying the military?’ Rivera said Wednesday on Fox’s The Five.
‘We needed some leadership here,’ he said. ‘More importantly, he’s the leader of the free world. Give us some guidance.’
During a separate appearance on Fox earlier this month, Rivera accused Trump of damaging the ‘fabric of our democracy’ by continuing to deny the results of the election, even after the Electoral College vote confirmed Biden’s win.
Instead, Trump has launch a series of lawsuits with the vast majority of them having since been dismissed.
‘It’s over,’ Rivera said during the December 14 broadcast. ‘I want the president, my friend, the current president, the 45th president, to understand it is over.
‘The Electoral College has voted. The longer we drag this out, the more we damage the fabric of our democracy.’
The pundit, who once suggested naming the COVID-19 vaccine after Trump, warned that he believes the president’s refusal to concede to Biden is damaging his legacy.
He urged the Trump to leave the White House with ‘grace and dignity’.
Republican Senator Pat Toomey said this morning Trump will be remembered as a president of ‘chaos and misery and erratic behavior’ if he doesn’t sign the $900 billion coronavirus relief bill by midnight.
‘You don’t always get what you want, even if you are the president of the United States,’ the Pennsylvania senator said in reference to Trump’s demand for $2,000 stimulus checks.
Toomey said during his interview with ‘Fox News Sunday’ that he opposes Trump’s proposed increase of direct checks to $2,000 from the $600 price tag already included in the most recent bipartisan coronavirus relief legislation.
The nearly $1 trillion relief bill, lumped in with the annual government funding legislation, went to the president’s desk for signage last week – but Trump said, seemingly out of the blue, that he would veto the package.
‘I think as he leaves office, he will — I understand he wants to be remembered for advocating for big checks, but the danger is he’ll be remembered for chaos and misery and erratic behavior if he allows this to expire,’ Toomey said.
Former White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove has slammed former national security adviser Michael Flynn and pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell over their claims regarding voter fraud in the 2020 election.
During an interview on Fox News, Rove was asked about Trump’s meetings with congressional Republicans to object to the Electoral College vote next month and reports that Trump entertained invoking martial law to “rerun” the election. The president denied considering martial law.
Rove said he would believe the president denying that he suggested invoking martial law but pointed out that Flynn publicly suggested that the president could do that.
The former national security adviser made the remark during an interview on Newsmax’s “Greg Kelly Reports.”
“Talk about an idiotic idea,” Rove said. “There’s no ability for any president to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1803, claiming that the issue has got to do with the hubbub around the election.”
“So, Gen. Flynn may have served honorably in the military, but he is sure as heck not a constitutional law scholar,” Rove continued. “And when it comes to giving good advice to the president about politics, he is certainly at the bottom of the list, in my opinion.”
He also tore into Powell, who told Fox News in a statement that she was blocked from speaking to the president. Rove, who was an aide to former President George W. Bush, blasted Powell’s election fraud theories and some of the witnesses who claim to support her case, including one who claimed there was 151 percent voter turnout in Wayne County, Mich.
“Any idiot with access to Google and the county election returns could have seen that the turnout was 51 percent, not 151 percent,” Rove said.
“I mean, what she has done to sort of throw mud on the president through her antics is unbelievable,” he continued. “The president’s been so ill-served by this crowd, and she’s chief among them.”
The president and his allies have repeatedly claimed that the election was stolen due to widespread voter fraud, despite their claims being disputed.
President-elect Joe Biden won the election with 306 electoral votes compared to Trump’s 232.
Biden also topped Trump in the popular vote by a margin of 7 million votes.