Presidential historian Michael Beschloss on Tuesday slammed Republican presidential candidates who despite some notable exceptions have largely avoided criticizing Donald Trump over the former president’s role in undermining American democracy.
Beschloss accused the GOP candidates “cowardice” during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out with Joy Reid.”
Beschloss’ comment came in response to an assertion from Reid that “There has never been anything like this, this time we're living in, in which a former vice president was almost the victim of a homicide at the hands of the president…and then he's running against him and still won't say it was an insurrection.”
“So Joy, if you were vice president to a president who was perfectly cool with having you hanged on the sixth of January and actually told people, Mike Pence deserves that fate, and put you in a state of being terrified that your wife and your daughter and the Capitol hiding in the basement and other places, I know you well enough to know that perhaps the strongest thing you would say would not be like Mike Pence ‘I was disappointed by President Trump that day. I think you would say he tried to have me hanged and I want him out of the office,” Beschloss said, noting “and Mike Pence is not the exception.”
Beschloss suggested that this fear-inspired behavior is anathema to America’s traditional democratic values.
“This crowd of people is running against Donald Trump, they're terrified of him and they don't want to take the slightest risk, and the point I would make briefly is the founders who designed this system, beginning with James Madison, the idea is that you would run for senator or run for governor or run for president you would say what you wanted to do and if you lost you’d be like what John Kennedy said about himself in 1960, he said in Houston, September 1960 ‘If I should lose this election, I will return to my seat in the Senate satisfied that I tried my best and was fairly judged.’ That's what the American tradition is,” Beschloss said.
“I mean, what's wrong with Nikki Haley, is all she can do run for office? Is she trying to inflate her lecture fees? You've got a group of people who will not save us from the dangers of Donald Trump, will not save anyone. And this is not leadership. It's cowardice.”
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