More Republicans are criticizing Trump for calling for the repeal of the U.S. Constitution

Donald Trump – amnestied by Musk on Twitter but turned down an offer to return to the social networking site – released his statement on the Truth social platform on December 3. First – for the umpteenth time – he wrote that the results of the 2020 presidential election were rigged. And then went on to the Constitution: “Massive fraud of this kind and magnitude allows all rules, regulations and articles, even those in the Constitution, to be overturned. Our great founders did not and would not condone rigged and fraudulent elections!”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer thinks Republicans should openly oppose this statement. “If the country doesn’t free itself from Trump’s ideology, it will undermine our American way of life,” the politician said from the Senate floor. – And it’s not a matter of an inter-party fight. When a former president calls for the repeal of the U.S. Constitution, one cannot remain silent. Such statements should be strongly condemned. So, my Republican colleagues, that’s enough! Repudiate the call to “Make America Great Again,” repudiate Trump! Condemn these horrible attacks on the American Constitution!”

Republicans are responding in a variety of ways. Assessments depend on the degree of personal sympathy. And on what particular politicians’ career plans are for the Republican Party. Trump’s most ardent supporters aren’t embarrassed by anything at all. And how, they say, could a former president challenge the 2020 election in any other way?

“The situation is extraordinary,” notes Ohio Republican Michael Alterman in an interview with the Voice of America’s Russian Service. – This isn’t the first time Trump’s remarks have made people’s hair stand on end. But what’s left for him to do? Sue him? Or what?”.

The courts have found no evidence of voter fraud in the vote count. And for many Republican politicians – such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney or Senator Lisa Murkowski – Biden’s victory, legally certified by Congress on January 6, 2021, was clear. By acknowledging it and actively speaking out in impeachment hearings against Trump, they enlisted themselves as ideological opponents of the former president. And when Trump wrote about the need to repeal articles and provisions of the Constitution, the same Lisa Murkowski responded instantly, “The proposal to repeal the Constitution is not only a violation of the presidential oath of office, but a humiliation of our republic.”

Today, conservative heavyweights like John Thune of South Dakota (the second most important Republican in the Senate) and his Upper House colleague John Cornyn of Texas have joined the ranks of Republicans who criticize Trump. The Republican leaders in the House and Senate – Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, respectively – are so far silent. Although the latter has promised to make a statement today. According to many Republicans, the current state of the party is such that even silence can be interpreted as a sign of dissent.

“Trump’s influence is still strong,” Boris Pincus, a Republican politician from New York, told Voice of America, “and you can’t alienate the group of Republicans who still support Trump. It has to go gradually, not all at once. His era is over. The very word ‘Trump’ has become toxic.”

Yuri Rashkin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, believes that Trump has cornered the entire Republican Party with this statement. “Now it’s not clear how to get out of this state,” Rashkin says in an interview with the Russian service of the Voice of America. – Because if you’re a Republican and you support Trump, it turns out that you’re against the American Constitution?”

The White House said: the Constitution is inviolable, and any attack on it “deserves universal condemnation.” White House spokesman Andrew Bates recalled on Twitter a snippet from President Biden’s inaugural address, where he said he would defend the Constitution. Incidentally, when Joe Biden took office in 2021, he said the word “Constitution” three times, while Trump’s 2017 speech did not mention it once.

Trump himself wrote in Truth social there on Monday that he did not call for the abolition of the Constitution, it was all “misinformation and lies” spread by the “lying media.”