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'Fear of what Trump will do' if he runs again may 'tempt' GOP senators to vote for impeachment: report
January 22, 2021
While the Democratic leadership of the House and the Senate is working on a plan to present the articles of impeachment filed against Donald Trump to the U.S. Senate for a trial and vote, Republican senators are looking at the pluses and minus of abandoning their support of the former president.
With former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) opening the door to possibly siding with the Democrats against the former president now residing down in Florida, the Guardian is reporting that there are a multitude of reasons for GOP lawmakers to follow suit including the dread of having Trump as the face of their party again.
As the Guardian's Tom McCarthy wrote, "If convicted, Trump could be banned from ever again holding public office. If not, Trump, who won the votes of 74 million Americans just two months ago, might simply run for president again in 2024," before conceding that it is highly unlikely 17 Republicans would vote to convict.
But, as he points out, the "political landscape" where Republicans reflexively supported the president has changed since the election and even more so before supporters of the president stormed the U.S. Capitol and threatened lawmakers' lives.
"Disgust at the fatal sacking of the Capitol has only grown since 6 January, creating pressure on Republicans to condemn Trump, who appeared in person to speak to the mob before the attack and encouraged them to march on the building," he explained. "Some Republicans might be eager to condemn Trump for other reasons, blaming him for their loss of the Senate majority, which happened because Republican candidates lost two runoff elections in Georgia in January, in a huge double upset."
Add to that, at least six Republican members of the Senate have indicated they are eyeing a presidential run in 2024, and having the ex-president sidelined might be in their best interests.
According to the columnist, it is "unclear how many Republicans might follow McConnell if he indeed tips toward convicting Trump," after only 10 GOP House members voted in favor of Trump's second impeachment, but there is a powerful incentive for senators to convict the president who has already vowed to help oust incumbents who did not support him.
"Up for election only once every six years versus every other year for House members, senators are more insulated from political tides. Anger at how Trump has divided their party could tempt some Republicans toward banishing him, as could fear of what Trump will do if he is permitted to run for office again," McCarthy wrote.
You can read more here.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) has long used his disability as an inspiring story about overcoming adversity, but others who face similar challenges say his triumphant claims have become something of a running joke among some others who use wheelchairs.
The newly elected North Carolina Republican was paralyzed from the waist down following a 2014 car crash, when he was 18 years old, and has falsely boasted about his business success, acceptance into the Naval Academy and training for the Paralympic Games, reported The Nation.
<p>"It's like a kid saying they want to play in the NBA when they're on their fourth-grade basketball team," said Paralympian athlete Amanda McGrory, who has earned seven medals in track and field.</p><p>The 25-year-old Cawthorn told a Christian podcast that he "had an opportunity" for track and field events in the Paralympics, but The Nation's reporting found no evidence of such an opportunity or any meaningful steps he'd taken to get there.</p><p>"You have to be involved in a team, usually your college or a local club," McGrory said, "and then from there, you establish times at qualifying races, and then from there you get scouted." </p><p>Cawthorn attended Patrick Henry College, a tiny Christian college in Virginia that doesn't offer a disabled sports program, and other wheelchair athletes don't recall ever seeing him at events.</p><p>"The community itself is small," said Robert Kozarek, a former elite wheelchair marathoner who never qualified for the Paralympic Games himself. "There's probably 50 [elite wheelchair racers] in the entire country, and we see each other four, five, six times a year, at least."</p><p>Cawthorn <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt1C5wxA3WI/" target="_blank">boasts</a> about training for the Paralympics on social media, but other athletes aiming for the same goals say the lawmaker's claims about his intentions to break the world record for the 100-meter dash are ridiculous.</p><p>"Who is this guy?" McGrory recalls thinking when she saw Cawthorn's boast. "Why does he think he's going to break world records? This is really weird. I don't think he has any idea what he's talking about."</p><p>Brian Siemann, a two-time Team USA track and field athlete in the Paralympic Games, sheepishly admitted that Cawthorn's Instagram account had been a running joke among other elite wheelchair athletes.</p><p>"[My teammates and I] would share whatever posts [Cawthorn] put up and be like, 'Look at what batsh*t thing he said about the Paralympics this week," Siemann said. "The claims he was making were just so absurd, you have to find some humor in it."</p><p>Cawthorn has also claimed that he'd been accepted to the Naval Academy after then-U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) nominated him, but he had already been rejected before his life-altering injury, and his real-estate investment firm, SPQR Holdings LLC, has reported no income on its tax documents and listed only the lawmaker as an employee.</p><p>The lawmaker's Instagram account kicked up one of the largest controversies in his fledgling career, after he celebrated a "bucket list" visit to Adolf Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" retreat, although he denounced the Nazi "Fuhrer" as "supreme evil."</p><p>A guest columnist for his hometown Asheville <em>Citizen Times</em> called on the youngest lawmaker elected to Congress since 1797 to step down after helping to incite a violent insurrection Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol, three days after he was sworn in, aimed at overturning Donald Trump's election loss.</p><p>"It's time for Congressman Cawthorn to resign," <a href="https://www.citizen-times.com/story/opinion/2021/01/11/madison-cawthorn-twitter-calls-to-resign-after-us-capitol-riot/6620584002/?itm_medium=recirc&itm_source=taboola&itm_campaign=internal&itm_content=RightRailArticleThumbnails-Redesign" target="_blank">wrote contributor Jasmine Beach-Ferrara</a>. "If he does not resign, he should be removed from office because he has violated his oath of office and specifically section 3 of the 14th Amendment."</p>
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Now that former President Donald Trump is gone and President Joe Biden has taken office, the real work begins. However, in the midst of moving forward, the Biden administration has quite a bit to clean up. The cover of Time magazine's latest issue offers a depiction of the chaos Trump leaves behind and now that cover image is going viral.
On Thursday, Jan. 22, Tim O'Brien tweeted a photo of the cover, titled "Day One," as he explained the piece saying, "For the past several days, after pondering where we are as a nation, what just happened in Washington, and what Joe Biden faces as he takes the office of President, I was working on a piece that is now on the cover of the new issue of Time Magazine."
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<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="47d2e80c89ff6407d12e16b188fd8c83" id="c08be"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1352254807474630660"><div style="margin:1em 0">For the past several days, after pondering where we are as a nation, what just happened in Washington, and what Joe… https://t.co/wK1V7BQPqc</div> — Tim O'Brien (@Tim O'Brien)<a href="https://twitter.com/TonkaOBrien/statuses/1352254807474630660">1611237644.0</a></blockquote></div>
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O'Brien's latest illustration comes just months after his previous visual depiction of Trump's one-term presidential travesty. Back in August, he released an image of Trump drowning in a COVID river while fighting to get back to the White House, seen in the distance.
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<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="143b016d3c5c54deb7d7793029ee5717" id="0cdc0"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1291329116176822272"><div style="margin:1em 0">TIME’s new cover: How COVID-19 changed everything about the 2020 election https://t.co/WcGbCk7j7t https://t.co/Bwq5PyKBzR</div> — TIME (@TIME)<a href="https://twitter.com/TIME/statuses/1291329116176822272">1596711827.0</a></blockquote></div>
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At the beginning of 2020 amid Trump's first impeachment trial, Time magazine featured a storm simulation designed by O'Brien that showed the former president sitting in the Oval Office at the resolute desk amid a thunderstorm. Despite the obvious storm, the caption befittingly read, "Nothing to see here."
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The latest cover comes as Trump prepares for his second impeachment trial. On Wednesday, Jan. 13, the House voted to impeach the disgraced former president again for allegedly inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6.
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The deadly riots occurred after Trump held a "Save America" rally and encouraged an angry mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers were working to certify the Electoral College vote to affirm President Joe Biden's election win. The incident left five people dead, including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.
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