OnPolitics: The GOP's Trump problem

Mabinty Quarshie, USA TODAY
·3 min read
1
Former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Leader Mitch McConnell
Former President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Leader Mitch McConnell

It's Thursday and a winter storm is wreaking havoc in the U.S. More than 400,000 customers in Texas were still without power. Across the nation, more than 1 million people had no electricity. Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Oregon experienced widespread outages.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is finding out the hard way that optics matter.

The GOP is in the midst of a dilemma over whether to embrace former President Donald Trump or try to sideline him after he lost the 2020 election and Republicans lost the Senate.

It's Mabinty, with the day's top news.

Want this news roundup in your inbox every night? Sign up for OnPolitics newsletter here.

'King Kong vs. Godzilla'

Trump's second impeachment trial is over. But he isn't over the results, even though he was acquitted. Reminder: Seven Republican senators voted to convict him.

While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was not one of the seven, he did blame Trump for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. "There's no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day," McConnell said Saturday.

How did Trump react to McConnell's comments? He slammed McConnell as an "unsmiling political hack" in a lengthy statement Tuesday and threatened to oppose conservative senators who stick with the Kentuckian in future primaries.

The fallout from McConnell's broken alliance with Trump could make the GOP's fight to wrest control of the Senate away from Democrats much messier, political experts say.

"I mean, this is like King Kong vs. Godzilla," said Mark Riddle, a Kentucky-based Democratic strategist. "I'm not saying which one is which, but we should just stand back and let them go fight."

To censure or not to censure? That is the question

Maine Sen. Susan Collins was one of the seven Republicans who crossed party lines to vote with Democrats in convicting Trump. In the aftermath, more than three dozen leaders in Maine's Republican Party signed a letter chastising Collins for her vote.

"As leaders in our party we have fielded many emails, phone calls, text messages and all manner of communications from grassroots supporters and Mainers from all backgrounds," the letter states. "They are almost universally outraged at this action and have demanded we take action in response. An important part of our job is to represent them and be their voice, just as it your job to be a voice for all Mainers."

So, how did Collins react? In a written response Wednesday, Collins said she voted to acquit Trump in his first impeachment trial last year and voted to convict him in his second impeachment trial because she swore an oath to serve as an impartial juror weighing the facts of each case.

"The decisions I made in both trials were based on the Constitution and the evidence before me, not on my membership in a political party or any other external factor," Collins said, in a letter she released publicly.

OK, will they censure her? It's unclear whether the Maine GOP executive committee still intends to consider a formal censure in addition to Wednesday's letter.

Enough about impeachment, here's what else is going on:

Please keep Texas in your thoughts and consider donating to help out. —Mabinty

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump and Mitch McConnell battle for the soul of the Republican party