A lengthy New York Times profile of the current state of the Michigan Republican Party features back-and-forth sniping between former Rep. Dave Trott (R-MI) and indicted former Michigan GOP co-chairwoman Meshawn Maddock.
In an interview with the Times, Trott explained why he and other Republicans in Michigan had long been wary of Maddock, who has been indicted for alleged forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery in her role as a fake elector for former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
"Meshawn was never connected to the donor base, and so having her as the vice chair for a lot of us was a showstopper,” Trott explained to the Times. “Because we just knew she would never be someone that would be rational in her approach to state party politics.”
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Maddock, however, didn't take Trott's claims about her irrationality lying down and fired right back at him.
“The state party needs the wealthy RINOs who often fund it to come to terms with what the actual voters on the right want,” she told the paper. “Instead of constantly gaslighting the Republican base, the wealthy donors need to treat them with an ounce of respect for once.”
The sparring between Trott and Maddock is part of a broader pattern among Michigan Republicans, who have been bitterly divided between those who fervently believe Trump's false claims about the 2020 election being "stolen" and those who simply want to move on from the former president, who was impeached on two separate occasions and has now been indicted four times on dozens of criminal charges.
