Horowitz: Some Republicans & Trump Supporters Speak Out

Horowitz: Some Republicans & Trump Supporters Speak Out

While President Trump and some of his most virulent defenders stick to the old witch-hunt, hoax narrative that they believe worked for them in the case of the Mueller probe, it is becoming evident that most Republican elected officials and even a few of Trump’s usually reliable media enablers are not going to be comfortable rallying to that line of  threadbare and unworkable defense in the case of the serious national security implications of the President’s efforts to use American power to leverage foreign nations to investigate Joe Biden, potentially his general election opponent in 2020.

Despite persistent efforts, most of the Sunday shows were able to find only a very few Senators and Congressman willing to go on television this weekend to defend the president. Tellingly, the White House also made no one from the Administration available to appear.  With the exception of a few usual suspects, such as Jim Jordan and Lindsey Graham, what was heard in Trump’s defense calls to mind the title of an old Simon & Garfunkel song, “The Sounds of Silence.”

A few Republicans are even taking the next step and beginning to speak out. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) tweeted, “When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China’s investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated. By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling.

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Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) told a Nebraska newspaper, “Hold up: Americans don’t look to Chinese commies. If the Biden kid broke laws by selling his name to Beijing, that’s a matter for American courts, not communist tyrants running torture camps.”

It is the case that both Romney and Sasse are at least sometimes critics of the president. But, that does not apply to Tucker Carlson--one of the president’s most reliable defenders. In an opinion piece co-authored with his Daily Caller co-founder Neil Patel, Carlson wrote, “Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden. Some Republicans are trying, but there's no way to spin this as a good idea… Once those in control of our government use it to advance their political goals, we become just another of the world's many corrupt countries. America is better than that.”

Carlson and Patel go on to say that these actions, however, do not rise to the level of impeachment.  In doing so, they point the way to the only plausible defense of President Trump. This echoes how most Democrats defended President Clinton during his impeachment: the president’s actions were wrong, but they are not a sufficient reason to remove him from office.

While President Trump’s actions in Ukraine-- pressuring a foreign government to investigate a political opponent while holding up nearly $400 million of needed defensive weapons already approved by Congress-- are far more serious than President Clinton's offenses, since Clinton had already been re-elected there was no electoral remedy. The Republicans can greatly enhance their case by saying with an election only a year away, we should let the American people decide Donald Trump’s fate--not take the drastic step of substituting our judgment for theirs.

Given that as more facts continue to come out, the situation is only likely to get worse, agreeing on a public defense--that is not laughable--needs to be a high White House priority. It is time for someone to tell the president that.

 

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.