Retiring Republican Congressmen open fire on Trump

As a number of Republican congressmen are expected to retire in a few weeks, they become more vocal about their criticism toward President Trump.

Trump’s presidency is about to enter into its third year and Republican lawmakers who were once part of the #NeverTrump movement back in 2016 have gradually lost their influence. Although GOP lost the House in this year’s midterms, Trump still remains the dominant voice within the party.

“This is the president’s party now. It really is. I don’t think you can read it any other way,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told the Washington Post. Facing immediate retirement, he feels marginalized as one of the few Republican dissenters that remain.

Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) shared Flake’s sentiment and decided to use his last days denouncing Trump’s behaviors in the previous two years.

An anti-Trump position came at a cost. Back in June, he suffered a defeat to Katie Arrington, a Trump-backed South Carolina representative, in the Republican primary. Arrington, however, lost to Democratic candidate Joe Cunningham in November although the race took place in a long-time conservative district.

Sanford believed Arrington’s defeat was a wake-up call for the Republican Party and published an op-ed article in the New York Times, advising the GOP to immediately distance itself from Trump.

“I continue to believe that the Trump phenomenon is a temporary phenomenon,” Sanford said, although he also admitted he “wouldn’t have guessed it would last as long as it has.”

Sanford believed that his anti-Trump messages had cost him the primary but also claimed that he would not have done it any other way. “It’s my belief that where he’s taking our party is in a dangerous direction, both in electoral consequence, which we saw with the midterms, and, more significantly, with regard to the conservative movement,” he said.

A couple retiring GOP lawmakers also spoke out against Trump’s role in FBI’s special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Sen. Jeff Flake took the lead. Last Wednesday, he declared that he needed the Senate to pass a bill preventing Robert Mueller’s removal before he voted for Trump’s other judicial nominees.

Earlier last week, he and Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) tried to hold a vote on a bill that would allow a terminated special counsel to challenge their removal before three federal judges. Nevertheless, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY.) blocked the vote. While many Republicans such as Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) argued that Trump would never fire Muller and the bill was not necessary, Flake disagreed. His Wednesday could potentially derail the GOP’s efforts to push for the confirmation of a number of conservative judges in the last month of 2018.

Flake said in a congressional meeting that “the president now has this investigation in his sights and we all know it.”

“Why? Why do we do this? To protect a man seemingly who is so incurious about what Russia did during the 2016 elections?” Flake said of Trump. “Why do we do that? Do we have no more institutional pride here?”

“You use what leverage you have,” Flake later explained to reporters why he put forward the threat. “This is a priority now.”

Another issue that became a target of criticism was Trump’s support for Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman regarding the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) strongly condemned Trump’s dealing with the situation and urged the Congress to end America’s support for Saudi war efforts in Yemen.

“There’s ways that the administration, even rhetorically, can help change the dynamic,” said Corker. “Saudi Arabia is an ally, of sorts, and a semi-important country, we’ve watched innocent people be killed. . . . We also have a crown prince who is out of control.”

The Senate will soon make its decision about the matter. There is now immense pressure on Trump to take a harsher stance against Mohammed.

Featured image via Melina Mara/The Washington Post