Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers: ‘I’ll Never Vote’ Again for Trump

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he would “never vote again” for former President Donald Trump.

Bowers testified to the January 6 House Select Committee about the former president’s actions surrounding the 2020 election.

Partial transcript as follows:

JON KARL: Liz Cheney asked the question, can a president who was willing to make the choices Donald Trump made —

REP. LIZ CHENEY, (R-WY): Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th, ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?

BOWERS: I would certainly hope not. I certainly don’t trust that authority that he would exercise.

KARL: Liz also said that the reality that we face today as Republicans is we have to choose to be loyal to Donald Trump or to be loyal to the Constitution, and you can’t be both, and that’s what — and that’s the choice the Republicans faced. I mean, that’s the choice you faced.

BOWERS: Definitely and forcefully so, as I said.

KARL: Yes.

BOWERS: You will come to us or we will punish you and that’s kind of the attitude of that particular group. If you want to base a party and an authority and move people to solve problems, you can’t base it on a lie. Ultimately that falls apart.

KARL: Never met Kevin McCarthy —

BOWERS: No.

KARL: — but if you were to offer him some advice — I’m not sure he’d be seeking it from you, but —

BOWERS: I don’t think he would.

KARL: — but if you were to offer him some —

BOWERS: Just tell the truth, look at the situation, look at the stakes. What is at stake here? You have to have quality moral character and a moral compass and in the absence of that, then the whole country is at risk.

KARL: So just to clarify, you’re not supporting Trump again?

BOWERS: No. I’m not — I’m not — my vote will never tarnish his name on a ballot.

KARL: You’re never again going to vote for Donald Trump?

BOWERS: I’ll never vote for him. But I won’t have to —

KARL: Yes.

BOWERS: Because I think America’s tired, and there’s some absolutely forceful qualified morally defensible and upright people and that’s what I want. That’s what I want in my party and that’s what I want to see.

 

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