Most Republican leaders are attempting to move on from Trump’s unsuccessful effort to alter the outcome of the 2020 election, which he legitimately lost.
“While there were some irregularities, there were none of the irregularities which would have risen to the point where they would have changed the vote outcome in a single state,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-SD, said ABC’s This Week. “The election was fair, as fair as we have seen. We simply did not win the election, as Republicans, for the presidency. And if we simply look back and tell our people don’t vote because there’s cheating going on, then we’re going to put ourselves in a huge disadvantage.”
But Trump, who had previously sponsored hundreds of candidates for the 2022 midterm elections and continues to wield the most power inside the Republican Party, is working hard not to let them go.
“No, I think it’s an advantage, because otherwise they’re going to do it again in ’22 and ’24, and Rounds is wrong on that. Totally wrong, ” says Trump in an interview with NPR on Tuesday, Trump referred to his bogus and disproved allegations that the 2020 election was stolen.
The interview had been in the works for six years. Trump and his crew had always denied NPR interviews, except for this one when he phoned in from his Florida residence. It was supposed to last 15 minutes, but it only lasted a little more than nine.
Trump suddenly interrupted the interview after being challenged about his repeated lying regarding the 2020 presidential race.
The conversation started with a discussion about the epidemic and immunizations.
Trump, whose administration supervised the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, advised people to be vaccinated but stated he is adamantly opposed to requiring it.
“[T]he mandate is really hurting our country,” Trump claimed, adding, “A lot of Americans aren’t standing for it, and it’s hurting our country.”
He continued, “The vaccines, I recommend taking them, but I think that has to be an individual choice. I mean, it’s got to be individual, but I recommend taking them.”
Republican resistance to mandates is widespread, and the Supreme Court had previously considered the Biden administration’s vaccine-or-test requirement for major companies. However, his remarks come at a time when the unvaccinated are significantly more likely to be hospitalized or die from the illness, and Republicans are far more likely to be unvaccinated.
Epidemiologists and health specialists warn that if more people do not get vaccinated and the virus continues to mutate, the pandemic will last longer — and any feeling of normalcy will be delayed.
The former president said that he wanted medicines, which are used to cure the virus once someone has been infected, to be manufactured and delivered more broadly.
Trump is not your average past president.
Even many members of his own party have blamed him for instigating the fatal Jan. 6 insurgency at the U.S. Capitol, but Trump has only reinforced his hold on the Republican Party since then.
He is still one of the most popular personalities in the Republican Party and is widely seen as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, if he chooses to run again.
When Trump campaigned for president in 2016, he was perceived as running a shoestring campaign, facing an uphill struggle with few friends among Republican elected officials.
It’s a different tale nowadays. Trump’s campaign machine has grown into a behemoth. Not only are most Republican elected leaders on board, but he has also positioned loyalists in positions of authority around the nation. Trump supporters are leading local Republican organizations, serving as state lawmakers, and heading political action committees in state after state.
It’s a political army ready to deploy at his command. What he says — what his message is to them — is important because they will listen.
To maintain his authority, he will do anything he can to eliminate those who do not demonstrate devotion. Threats, bullying, and intimidation, such as badgering and name-calling, are examples of such behavior.
In a statement after Rounds’ appearance on ABC, for example, Trump claimed Rounds “just got woke,” labeled him a “jerk,” “weak,” “ineffective,” and questioned if he was “crazy or simply foolish.”
He also referred to him as a RINO, an abbreviation for a slur reserved by certain conservatives for more moderate Republicans with whom they disagree – Republicans in name only.
In an interview with NPR, he blamed Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell for Rounds and other senators believing they could step out and properly declare that Trump had lost the election.
“Because Mitch McConnell is a loser,” Trump said.
Trump has called McConnell worse — all because the Kentucky Republican has crossed Trump, blaming him for the Jan. 6 insurgency and declaring that President Biden won, even if McConnell does not do it firmly every day.
It’s typical of Trump, who has demanded unwavering fealty — and who chafes at realities he disagrees with, particularly about him losing.
As this year’s legislative elections approach, many Republicans want to concentrate on Biden. Trump is urging candidates to take a different path.
Josh Mandel, a pro-Trump Republican from Ohio, announced his Senate candidacy only weeks after Trump supporters invaded the United States Capitol last year.
“I think over time we’re gonna see studies come out that [show] evidence of widespread fraud,” Mandel, a former state treasurer who is angling for Trump’s endorsement, told WKYC-TV.
The opposite has occurred in the year after Mandel made his forecast.
More evidence points to a free and fair election.
