The struggle for the future of the Republican Party continues.
Representative Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), said publicly this week that President Trump should relent from his vow to primary GOP politicians who voted to impeach him.
“He can do whatever he wants,” Emmer said. “But I would tell him that it’s probably better for us that we keep these people and we make sure that we have a majority that can be sustained going forward.”
“That’s not gonna be helpful,” the NRCC chair remarked of the prospect of the 45th president getting involved in Republican primary races, telling Politico that he and Trump will have a conversation on the matter “at some point.”
The NRCC’s job is to get Republicans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives through direct financial contributions to candidates and other forms of assistance.
President Trump has made clear that he intends to take action against lawmakers whom he feels betrayed him. During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando last week, he reaffirmed his decision to “get rid of them all” and named a list of prominent Republicans to be primaried, including Representative Liz Cheney (Wy.) and Senator Mitt Romney (Utah).
“We cannot have leaders who show more passion for condemning their fellow Americans than they have ever shown for standing up to Democrats, the media, and the radicals who want to turn America into a socialist country,” Trump said during his speech, declaring that his Save America PAC would support candidates who align with his vision.
Trump has already stepped into the intra-party fight, endorsing a primary opponent for GOP Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, who voted to impeach him.
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Emmer voted to certify the election results in January, arguing that he didn’t believe Congress had the right to object to the certification.
“The Constitution, it’s a limiting document. I mean, there’s a reason why one of the amendments speaks directly to the fact that any power that’s not expressly enumerated to the federal government, is reserved to the states,” he said in defense of his vote. “I would encourage Democrats and Republicans alike that as we go forward, we should always follow this.”
Emmer avoided saying that votes against certifying last November’s election results were explicitly unconstitutional, but said others should reevaluate.
“Everybody has the right to their opinion,” he said. “I think we all perhaps as we go forward should re-examine what the Constitution says.”
“All of us together are going to make sure we’re going to restore integrity to our elections so that people will trust that their votes are being counted and the outcome is the fair and transparent result,” he added.
Emmer stated that while the NRCC will not openly get involved in primaries, it will provide resources to GOP incumbents as part of its effort to win back a majority in the House.
The Minnesota lawmaker is far from the only major party official who wants to keep President Trump from going after incumbents.
Rick Scott, Florida’s junior senator and the state’s former governor, heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the upper chamber’s equivalent of Emmer’s outfit. He said back in January that he will use his role to support incumbents against Trumpist primary challengers.
John Thune (S.D.), the Senate’s Number Two Republican after Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, has likewise promised to back establishment incumbents over outsiders in the party’s primaries next year.
As Politico notes:
Thune suggested he would be taking steps to assist candidates “who don’t go off and talk about conspiracies and that sort of thing.” He praised Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, who was censured by the Wyoming GOP for voting to impeach Trump, for doing an “exceptional job on most issues” and said he was ready to jump into primary battles like the one she is sure to face.
“At the grassroots level, there’s a lot of people who want to see Trump-like candidates,” he said. “But I think we’re going to be looking for candidates that are electable.”
Moreover, Thune said it was “inexcusable” that President Trump allegedly incited an insurrection at the January 6 Capitol protest and called it a case of “cancel culture” to want to vote out pro-impeachment Republicans such as Cheney.
