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It would be a slight overstatement to suggest the Republican Party spoke entirely with one voice in response to Donald Trump’s felony conviction. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, for example, said the jury’s verdict deserves to be “respected.” Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said the same thing.
Former Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, meanwhile, urged his party to replace Trump on the 2024 ticket, a sentiment that was echoed by former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Readers might’ve noticed the one common thread tying these four GOP voices together: Not one of these men is currently in office. Are there any current Republican officeholders willing to say anything similar?
The answer is no, though as The Hill noted, Sen. Lisa Murkowski came relatively close.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) expressed frustration Friday over what she called the “distractions” of former President Trump’s legal dramas and declared “a Republican nominee without this baggage would have a clear path to victory.”
The Alaska Republican — who has made no secret of her disdain for Trump, and who recently criticized her GOP colleagues who made the trek to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse to show their support for the defendant — didn’t come right out and say that Trump shouldn’t be the GOP nominee. She instead framed it as a preferred alternative in a hypothetical scenario: Murkowski apparently thinks a different Republican would find it easier to prevail in the general election.
Still, the Alaskan's reaction stood out as notable, precisely because it was different from her colleagues'.
About a month before Election Day 2016, the “Access Hollywood” tape reached the public. Americans heard Trump boasting years earlier about his romantic exploits, which eventually led him to brag about committing sexual assaults. The Republican said, among other things, that he kisses women he considers beautiful — “I don’t even wait,” Trump claimed — which he said he can get away with because of his public profile.
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” the future president said on the recording. “You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the p---y.”
At the time, a great many Republicans withdrew their support from their own party’s presidential nominee — even as early voting got underway — apparently hoping to distance themselves from a candidate they assumed would lose. A Washington Post report listed GOP officials who abandoned Trump in the aftermath of the controversy, including many who publicly called on him to quit, and the list was not short.
Indeed, it included 13 Republican senators, four Republican governors, and 21 Republican U.S. House members. Each of these 38 officials were, at the time, incumbent GOP officeholders, and they all either withdrew their support for his candidacy, called on him to be replaced on their party’s national ticket, or both.
Eight years later, in the wake of Trump’s criminal conviction, the party’s standards are noticeably lower.