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CAN’T FILIBUSTER THIS: They’ll never say it publicly. But Republicans in Washington are dreading DONALD TRUMP’S return to the stump, predicting his rallies will cause a major headache for the party as it mounts a bid to take back Congress in 2022.
Even as they tee off against Twitter and Facebook for banning Trump, GOP lawmakers are privately relieved he no longer has those megaphones. But the resumption of rallies gives Trump a new platform to spout conspiracy theories about the election and air his grievances — at the same time most Republicans are desperate to move on and talk about the Biden agenda.
“If we win the majority back in 17 months, it’s going to be in spite of Trump — not because of Trump,” said one senior House Republican aide for a lawmaker considered one of Trump’s top supporters on Capitol Hill. “He will totally take credit if we win the House back — but it won’t be because of him. This guy is a disaster.”
Trump is expected to hit the road in early June with a series of events as he ramps up his political presence for the midterms. POLITICO reported earlier this week on his plans for a modern-day “Contract with America,” working with the architect of the 1994 original, NEWT GINGRICH, on a policy platform to excite GOP voters.
The problem: Since when has Trump ever stuck to policy? Most Republicans are expecting a rerun of the oldies: false claims of voter fraud, witch hunts and the like — only to be hounded by reporters for their comment on the outrage of the moment.
Though many Republicans in Washington acknowledge they can’t win the House or Senate without Trump’s voters, they maintain that the best strategy is to focus on attacking the Democrats’ big-spending agenda.
Some Trump critics see a silver lining in Trump’s rallies. Rep. ADAM KINZINGER (R-Ill.) told us during a POLITICO Live interview this week that he hopes the rallies will expose a diminished Trump.
“I do think that’s going to be fatiguing with people, and eventually folks besides the most hardcore are going to say, ‘Okay, it’s time to move on,’” he said. “My hope is that actually in those rallies, people realize this is starting to get nuts.”
Yet for close to six years, Trump’s naysayers have predicted the GOP would finally say “enough already, this is nuts,” and move on. And he’s done nothing but prove them wrong.
More from Olivia Beavers and Burgess Everett: “Trump is confiding in allies that he intends to run again in 2024 with one contingency: that he still has a good bill of health, according to two sources close to the former president. That means Trump is going to hang over the Republican Party despite its attempts to rebrand during his exile and its blockade of a Trump-centric investigation into January’s insurrection.
“And amid news that the Manhattan district attorney has convened a grand jury that could decide to indict Trump, other executives working for him or the business itself, Trump publicly signaled this week that he’s considering another run. But he may face skepticism from surprising corners of the GOP, as some Republicans who supported him consistently during his presidency have mixed opinions about the possibility of a Trump 2024 campaign, according to interviews with 20 Republicans in both the House and Senate.”
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Republicans in Washington are dreading Donald Trump's return to the stump, predicting his rallies will cause a major headache for the party as it mounts a bid to take back Congress in 2022 https://t.co/UF9BvmKG0k
— POLITICO (@politico) May 27, 2021
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