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As Donald Trump’s rhetoric has taken a turn for the authoritarian in the 2024 campaign, his party has largely stood back and stood by.
Republicans have shrugged at Trump’s pledge to make his second presidential term about retribution against his enemies. When he floated the “termination” of articles of the Constitution, they largely ignored it. The same went for his recent decision to invoke the “vermin” rhetoric of infamous fascists. And when he said recently that he would be a dictator but only on Day One of a second term, they dismissed it as a mere joke — just before he doubled down. He appeared serious; the joke was on them.
As that last example shows, people disregard Trump’s provocations at their peril. Yes, he says lots of things, often for effect. He loves to tempt censorious critics to overreact so they can be accused of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
Dictator for a day? Scholars say Trump can do damage without being one.
But there are also plenty of instances of Republicans downplaying or casting doubt on Trump’s actual intentions, only to be made to eat those words. The downside of Republicans’ agreement to take him seriously rather than literally is that sometimes, in some very serious circumstances, he means what he says. And sometimes when Republicans have offered assurances that Trump would adjust his behavior, he’s done anything but.
Here are some key examples.
When Trump repeatedly attacked Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in charge of the Russia investigation, Republicans begged off the idea that legislation was needed to protect Mueller, because Trump wouldn’t actually fire him.
- “I don’t think he would do that,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said.
- “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.
- “I’ve got zero concerns that the president or his team is going to fire Mueller,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said.
- “I don’t think the president is going to do anything to Bob Mueller,” then-Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said.
- “I can tell you firing Mueller is not something that he is considering and not something that he’s talking about,” then-Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said.
According to Mueller’s report, Trump tried to have Mueller fired. It said that in June 2017, Trump directed White House Counsel Donald McGahn “to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed.”
McGahn declined to carry out the directive, believing it would be akin to Richard M. Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre.
With Trump playing up voter fraud both before and after the 2020 election and declining to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, many Republicans cast doubt on the idea that it would mean anything, practically speaking.
- “There will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since 1792,” McConnell said.
- “He says crazy stuff. We’ve always had a peaceful transition of power. It’s not going to change,” then-Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said.
- Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) called the talk “preposterous.” “He stokes the fire sometimes,” Braun added. “If you took it seriously, it would be alarming. And I don’t think that that’s the case.”
Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, congressional Republicans said President Trump would accept the election result. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post)
- “I can assure you, it will be peaceful,” Graham said.
- “I think that the president will accept the result,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said.
- “Let me be very clear to you: It will be peaceful. I know you want to create a hypothetical,” then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said.
- “I’ve been asked the same question at least a hundred times in the past week: If the president loses, will he participate in a peaceful transition of power? … I am happy to answer: Yes,” former acting Trump White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney wrote in a Nov. 7, 2020, Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, “If He Loses, Trump Will Concede Gracefully.”
Trump rallied his supporters behind the idea that the election had been stolen, culminating in the violent and historic Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol after a Trump rally. He also tried to get Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results that day, and he still falsely maintains the election was stolen.
Seeking foreign election help
When Trump has talked about taking foreign help in his elections, some allies have downplayed it.
When he asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s “missing” emails in 2016, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Trump’s campaign insisted it was a joke.
When Trump told ABC News in mid-2019 that he would probably take foreign election help and not report it to the FBI, some in the GOP criticized him, but others shrugged it off.
- “Look, that’s Trump,” then-Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) said. “There’s nothing sinister about it; it was off the cuff.”
- “That was a hypothetical, and I think it’s an overreaction to the whole thing,” then-Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) said.
- McCarthy declined to condemn Trump’s comments and added, “I know this president would not want any foreign government interfering in this election.”
Despite the rebukes that he did receive in these instances — even from Republicans — Trump proceeded a month after the ABC interview to withhold aid from Ukraine and pressure its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as he sought dirt on the Bidens. The situation led to his first impeachment.
By October, he also publicly called for China to investigate the Bidens. (An informal White House adviser later said that he personally inquired with the Chinese about Hunter Biden the same week.)
And despite the claims that Trump was joking about hacking Clinton’s emails in 2016, a later indictment stated that Russian government hackers the same day attacked the email accounts of Clinton campaign staffers.
Learning his lessons from impeachments
When Trump faced accountability for his controversial actions with two impeachments, senators who were critical but voted to acquit him wagered that he would nonetheless be chastened.
- “I believe that the president has learned from this case,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said about Trump’s first impeachment, over Ukraine. “The president has been impeached. That’s a pretty big lesson.”
- “I think he’s learned that he has to be maybe a little more judicious and careful, the way he’s phrasing certain things,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said.
- “If a call like that gets you an impeachment, I would think he would think twice before he did it again,” then-Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said.
After Jan. 6, then-Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) offered similar comments, saying, “My personal view is that the president touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again.”
Trump’s actions after the 2020 election did not suggest a man who was chastened by being impeached the first time, and he was impeached again, with more members of his party voting to convict than had the first time. After the second impeachment, Trump repeatedly failed to return classified documents when the government came calling for them, earning him one of his four criminal indictments.
He has also continued to promote violent rhetoric, despite his supporters having turned violent on Jan. 6.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/13/when-republicans-cast-doubt-trumps-intent-ate-their-words/