Former W/H Communications Director Wake up Mr. and Mrs. GOP – pay attention and believe your own eyes and ears about Trump and read this CNN story headline:
“Retiring GOP lawmaker warns
Trump will try to steal the next election”
Retiring Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) has
a warning for his fellow Republicans: former President Donald Trump will try to
steal the next election. Gonzalez was one of 10 House Republicans (highlighted
in the picture above) who voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
In the face of relentless
attacks and threats directed toward him and his family afterward, the Ohio
Republican chose to retire from Congress at the end of his term and avoid
facing off with a Trump-backed primary challenger next year.
In September, Gonzalez announced he was retiring from Congress rather than running for reelection, citing in part: “The toxic dynamics of the Republican Party,” adding: “This lifestyle, the constant travel, the constant fundraising ... It wasn't working prior to impeachment. It was pretty clear that now is the time to get out of this.”
Gonzalez further said: “January 6 was an unconstitutional attempt led by the President of the United States to overturn an American election and reinstall himself in power illegitimately. That's fallen nation territory, that's third world country territory. My family left Cuba to avoid that fate. I will not let it happen here. I think it's all pushing towards one of two outcomes. He either wins legitimately, which he may do, or if he loses again, you just try to steal it.”
Related:
Bill Gates, a Republican supervisor in Arizona's Maricopa
County who pushed back on claims that there was fraud in the 2020 election
result said: “I have real concerns about the future of this democracy. I didn't
think we had this sort of pull towards authoritarianism in our in our
democracy.”
Gonzalez then pointed to election officials like Gates as a
key reason Trump was unsuccessful in his attempts to subvert the election
result in 2020, saying: “The institutions don't hold themselves. In the moments
of truth, you need the right people to pass the most difficult tests. We had
just enough people on January 6 pass the test. We have to make sure we have
equal number of people to continue to pass the test going forward. It looks to
me that he has evaluated what went wrong on January 6: Why is it that he wasn't
able to steal the election? Who stood in his way? And he's going methodically
state by state at races from, you know, state Senate races all the way down to
county commissioner races trying to get the people who – the Republicans, the
RINOs, in his words – who stopped this, who stopped him from stealing the
election.”
Gonzalez concluded saying while he is retiring from Congress, that he's not leaving the political arena, and especially if Trump runs again saying: “Should he be the nominee, or should he run again, I'll do everything I can to stop him. Can I stop him? I have no idea. But I believe as a citizen of this country who loves this country and respects the Constitution, that's my responsibility.”
Gonzalez was one of numerous Republicans targeted by Trump in the year since the 2020 election after they stood up to his attempts to subvert his election loss to Joe Biden.
GOP officials who took the brunt of Trump's wrath spoke to CNN for “Trumping Democracy: An American Coup.” They were warning about the danger Trump still poses to American democracy as he keeps spreading the lie that the election was stolen from him.
Also, recently, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) who has been
ostracized from the House GOP conference for joining the select committee
investigating January 6 along with Cheney, announced he would also retire. So
far, the other eight House Republicans who voted for impeachment are preparing
to run to keep their seats next year.
Kinzinger charged that none of them believe Trump's lies
that the election was stolen, but they go along with it to stay in Trump's good
graces. Kinzinger told CNN: “Not a word of it. I don't think they believe any
of it. But I think you can convince yourself, if you're determined to, that I'll
just play the game a little longer so that I'll be here to lead to a new
direction. Or, I'll play the game because I don't have the power and influence
to change the ship.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who was kicked out of House GOP
leadership over her Trump criticism said: “I'm afraid that the kind of
political violence, the kind of abandonment of the rule of law, the kind of
abandonment of the constitution that we watched, does threaten the foundations
of democracy, the foundations of our system. And the fact that so many in my
party are willing to be silent, are complicit, are enabling it, adds very much
to the peril.”
Cheney is one of the two Republicans serving on the House
select committee investigating January 6 – the other is Kinzinger.
Gonzalez and other Republicans fear the officials who
stopped Trump in 2020 may be replaced by those “more beholden to him than their
oath,” and that is thanks to Trump’s revenge campaign against those who opposed his
election lies. Trump endorsed Republicans who have embraced his lies about the
election in battleground states for normally low-key Secretary of State races.
Trump seeks to replace officials who rebuffed his pressure
campaign such as Georgia Republican Brad Raffensperger.
Besides Gonzalez, Trump has targeted the other nine House Republicans who voted to impeach him for inciting the January 6 riot, backing primary challengers to most of the lawmakers.
Seven Senate Republicans voted to
convict Trump, and the former President has endorsed a primary challenger to
the sole GOP senator in the group up for reelection next year, Lisa Murkowski
of Alaska.
Two-thirds of House Republicans voted to object to Biden's
wins in AZ and PA in the hours after the January 6 insurrection, including GOP House
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA); GOP House Minority Whip Steve Scalise
(R-LA); and now-House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who replaced
Cheney in GOP leadership earlier this year when the GOP kicked her out.
Now, add this story from
another Trump insider’s story to the mix and message for America is “It’s truly
a very serious wakeup call.”
This article comes from Business Insider with this headline:
“Trump's ex-communications
director warned that if the former president wins a 2nd term he would establish
an autocracy in the U.S.”
Alyssa Farah said that to CNN via Newsweek's reporting. Her key points:
· She is the former White House communications
director and she warned of a “nightmare scenario if Trump wins in 2024.”
· She told CNN that Trump would “absolutely impose
some form of autocracy.”
· She also said he could weaponize the justice
system against political opponents and use the military for political reasons.
Farah served as W/H Strategic Communications director,
and assistant to the president in 2020. She told journalist, CNN's Jake Tapper, that Trump would “absolutely impose some form of autocracy if re-elected in
2024” and, she described her former boss as a “man who has challenged our
institutions near to the breaking point.”
Farah went on to say that Trump's second term would be: “Very
different, and that is what scares me the most.”
She further said: “There were things that he wanted to do
when he was in power the first time that was well beyond the scope of what the
US president should be able to do, but oftentimes it was simply the motivation
of hoping to win reelection that kept him from doing things.”
When she was pressed for examples of things the former
president might do differently, she outlined her expectations saying to Tapper:
“Whether it's weaponizing the justice department against political opponents,
whether it's going after the free press, he would certainly be open to using
the military for political reasons as well.”
Trump has not officially announced a run for 2024 but he signaled that he will run when teasing a campaign
slogan at an October rally in Iowa, while his former chief of staff, Mark
Meadows, said that he would bet all of his money on Trump running for
a second term.
Another former White House official, Fiona Hill, who served as Trump's top Russia expert, and who testified in Congress during Trump’s first impeachment hearing regarding the Ukraine scandal and all sorts of Russian election interference tactics still ongoing said that Trump could win in 2024 if he decides to run.
Like Farah, Hill offered a less than complimentary
assessment of a Trump possible second term, saying in a The Hill article: “Just
one constitutional crisis after another. We're in for a wild ride. We're
already in it.”
My 2 Cents: What great reporting and honesty from those around or
close to Trump who knew him better than anyone else.
As I said up front it’s
time for America to Wake Up.
My appeal is more directed to those who still stick with Trump not knowing or believing or caring about what
kind of person he truly is – and that he is: “A Clear and Present Danger.”
Thanks for stopping by.
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