‘Only decision I could have made.’ SC Rep. Rice talks impeachment, vote to censure him

Two days before a mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to prevent the certification of the 2020 election, S.C. Rep. Tom Rice awoke in the middle of the night. He was worried.

“I said, ‘You know what? This is going to be bad.’ I said, ‘You know what’s going to happen is, there’s going to be 30,000 Trump folks that show up and 30,000 (anti-fascist) and (Black Lives Matter) folks that show up and there’s going to be riots in the streets and they’re going to be burning buildings,” Rice recalled Monday.

“That’s what I thought was going to happen,” he said.

Rice said he even told his staff members to be prepared for potential protests and not to come into the office on Jan. 6, the day the Electoral College votes were to be counted, the final step to confirm Joe Biden as president.

“I went in to my staff the next day and I said, ‘Guys, don’t come in. Don’t come in tomorrow.’ In fact, I told them, ‘Go to the ATM and get you some money out because I don’t know if it’s going to shut down the financial system,’” he said. “Make sure you’re going to be taken care of. That’s how concerned I was about it.”

Rice spoke Monday afternoon at a “Pints and Politics” interview hosted by The Post & Courier newspaper that was streamed live online.

In the interview, Rice spoke at length about his experiences during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, why he voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, a subsequent vote by the South Carolina Republican Party to censure him and the future of the Republican Party itself.

Rice has been in the spotlight after he became one of 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives who crossed party lines and voted to impeach Trump in January — a week after the Capitol riot.

Shortly afterward, Rice joined the ranks of other Republicans in Arizona and Wyoming who were censured by their state parties for not adequately supporting Trump. Rice has given other interviews after his vote and held a virtual town hall event to explain his decisions to voters, but spoke candidly and at length Monday afternoon, offering a deeper look into his thinking.

Rice discusses the Capitol attack

On Jan. 6, Rice described how members of Congress were attempting to go about their business of debating and certifying the results of the election. But security officials continued to interrupt the proceedings to update lawmakers about the mob. At one point, Rice said, an official notified them that tear gas had been deployed in the building and that members of the House of Representatives could find “safety packs” underneath their chairs to use as they escaped.

“They were hitting that door trying to break it down. And glass was breaking and the door was moving. I always felt like the Capitol was a pretty secure place and I was amazed that they were able to get that far,” Rice recalled. “I walked down the hallway to the office I ended up in and I saw three Capitol policeman coming in that had just been beaten terribly. One of them was in a wheelchair, one had a big bandage on his face and blood.”

He added that the attack would have been much worse if Capitol Police hadn’t intervened.

“At least you would have had hostages taken, maybe even people beaten, maybe people killed,” he said. “And I was really concerned that if they had gotten a hold of (former Vice President) Mike Pence, it would not have ended well. His wife was there, his children were there.”

Rice explains vote to impeach Trump

After the attack, Rice said he didn’t decide to vote to impeach Trump for days. He didn’t talk about his decision ahead of time with anyone. He said he asked his staff to compile everything they could find about what Trump was doing and saying throughout the day on Jan. 6.

“And I got those materials and I studied them, and the more I read, the more angry I got,” he said. “But it was very clear to me the decision I had to make. It was the only decision I could have made.”

Rice said his vote to impeach Trump boiled down to an issue of the separation of powers between branches of government. He said he felt Trump incited the mob, and that the mob was seeking to interfere with the work of Congress.

‘This was very, very clear to me that this was an attack on the legislative branch by the executive branch. Our Constitution clearly provides for a separation of powers and if this is allowed, that separation of powers disappears,” Rice explained. “If the President can say, ‘If you don’t vote my way I’m going to beat you up,’ then there’s no separation of powers at all and it was very clear to me how I should vote.”

Rice also said that Trump’s tweets on the day of the attack were clear incitement, particularly the one where he said Pence “lacks courage.”

“To me, that one tweet was incitement,” Rice said. “When people were in the Capitol and they’re yelling, ‘Hang Mike Pence’ and they’re looking for him. And the president, while that’s going on, is sitting in the White House watching TV, excited about what he’s created here and he tweets out, ‘Mike Pence lacks courage,’ to me that’s incitement.”

Rice responds to GOP censure

After Rice voted to impeach Trump, he faced another challenge back home: a vote to censure him by the South Carolina Republican Party. Rice said Drew McKissick, the South Carolina GOP chairman, texted him after he cast his impeachment vote, but then wouldn’t return his calls or texts.

“And then after that, I tried to call him and text him a couple of times and he never called me back.” Rice said. “Nobody ever told me I was going to be reprimanded by the South Carolina Republican Party. None of my county chairmen or Drew or anybody ever told me that that was going to happen or that there was this pending action.”

The effort to formally reprimand Rice began shortly after he cast his vote and concluded Jan. 30 with a unanimous vote by the executive committee of the Republican party.

On the future of the GOP

Other Republicans have faced backlash in the wake of the riot and the impeachment vote. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), like Rice, has also faced anger at home for her vote to impeach Trump.

Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was removed from her committee assignments by her colleagues in the House for past statements supporting violence and conspiracy theories.

In Monday’s interview, Rice defended Cheney and said while he disagrees with Taylor Greene, kicking her off of Congressional committees is a “slippery slope.”

“I think a lot of the views she’s espoused are absolutely offensive, and it’s difficult because she just got to Congress and if not all, almost everything she has said was before she was in Congress,” Rice said. “And her voters put her there.

“Her voters knew about her opinions, her voters voted her in. If we’re going to start excluding people from Congress because we don’t like their opinions, then where’s that going to go? I think that’s a very slippery slope.”

On the future of the Republican Party, Rice said he thinks the party should begin moving away from Trump the person, but continue pushing for the policies he supported. The party is already beginning to move in that direction, Rice said, citing an opinion poll from December that showed 65% of Republicans wanted Trump to be president again with a similar, more recent poll showing only 45% of Republicans want Trump to run again.

“I think the party has got to move on. I don’t think (Trump is) just going to say, ‘I’ll see you later,’ and nicely walk away. I think he’s a pretty vengeful guy. I fully expect he’ll be down here to seek his ounce of flesh,” Rice said. “But I think we have to move on, and I hope we will move on. I don’t think he needs to be our president again.”

Rice speaks on COVID-19 vaccine

Rice also addressed several topics not related to current politics, including the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, social media companies and infrastructure.

Rice said he has personally called officials from hospitals along the Grand Strand, including Tidelands Health, McLeod and the Medical University of South Carolina, to help them better understand federal guidance on vaccines and help the hospitals distribute their supplies effectively. An early obstacle was that some hospitals didn’t realize they needed to use all of one vaccine supply before they could receive another shipment.

On social media companies, Rice said the platforms have become so large, and are such a critical tool of mass communication, that they’ve risen above being private companies and ought to be regulated. He didn’t support any particular measures but said he’s open to reading what other legislators are drafting.

Rice also reiterated his support for extending Interstate 73 to Horry County and denied multiple times that he could profit in any way from such a project. He said he supports the interstate because it will lure large companies and plenty of jobs to the region.

“Companies are not going to locate here if they don’t have access to an interstate,” he said.