CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Friday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that “too many Republican leaders ” are “enthrall to Donald Trump,” causing them to be “eager to repeat the mistakes that have been made in the last six months.”
In a video, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said, “This is Donald Trump’s party, and I’m a Donald Trump Republican! We’re not going back to it the days of the Bushes and the McCains and the Romneys. Our way, America first, is the way forward for America.”
Tapper said, “The choice couldn’t be more stark which one is under federal investigation, but I guess that’s a separate matter. Look, the party is in a really weird place right now, a bad place. I am of the opinion that the United States of America needs a strong, thriving conservative party. Hopefully, the Republican Party, a party that represents the views and opinions of millions of Americans who believe in what the Republican Party believes, traditionally. But what we have now is too many Republican leaders enthrall to Donald Trump and in fear of the voters that Donald Trump has a great deal of sway with and not enough Republican leaders standing up for conservative principles. And it is a very ugly fight.”
He added, “You know, after McCarthy, Joe McCarthy was censured in 1954, there was an eagerness of the Republican Party to move on. After Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, there was an eagerness of the Republican party to move on. We don’t have that now. We don’t have a Republican Party eager to move on. We have a Republican Party eager to repeat the mistakes that have been made in the last six months.”
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