Former President Donald Trump called Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) “a disaster” and said he’s “laughed at in Washington” during a rally in South Carolina on Saturday evening.
While campaigning for Republican candidates Russell Fry and Katie Arrington, Trump spoke about the “RINOs and grandstanders” and called out Rice by name.
“Look at every city that’s run by the Democrats if you want safety, security, and strike vote for America first Republicans this November,” Trump said. “But before we can defeat the Democrat socialists and communists at the ballot boxes full, we first have to defeat the RINOS and grand standers in the primaries.”
Trump said the RINOs are “as bad as the Democrats and sometimes worse.”
“I don’t know – in many ways they’re as bad as the Democrats and sometimes worse. We got plenty of RINOs in the party, but I must say far fewer than we had four or five years ago,” the former President said.
Trump accused Rice, who voted to impeach Trump, of partnering with the Democrats to stab America and the Republican Party in the back.
Right here in the seventh congressional district, Tom Rice, a disaster, is respected by no one. He’s laughed at in Washington. He was never thought highly of in Washington. And he was just censured by your great GOP. Tom Rice joined the Democrats’ deranged impeachment witch hunt hoax, it’s all turned out to be a hoax. He parroted their lies. He gave aid and comfort to their weaponization of the national security state against the domestic political opponents. He voted for the unselect committee of highly partisan politicians that are running this horrible witch hunt in Washington. It’s a witch hunt like nobody’s ever seen before. But for me, it’s okay because it’s just a continuation of the fake witch hunt that’s gone on for four years. And now Tom Rice looks like a total fool.
Trump called Rice’s vote to impeach him “political suicide.”
“He said, ‘I didn’t know and I voted to impeach President Trump. I was committing political suicide.’ And you know, that’s exactly what happened. And hopefully it’ll be true,” Trump said.
Rice accused Trump of being “consumed by spite,” in a statement released after Trump’s South Carolina Rally.
Rice said:
Trump is here because, like no one else I’ve ever met, he is consumed by spite. I took one vote he didn’t like and now he’s chosen to support a yes man candidate who has and will bow to anything he says, no matter what. If you want a Congressman who supports political violence in Ukraine or in the United States Capitol, who supports party over country, who supports a would-be tyrant over the Constitution, and who makes decisions based solely on re-election, then Russell Fry is your candidate.
“If you want a Congressman who cowers to no man, who votes for what is right, even when it’s hard, and who has fought like hell for the Grand Strand and Pee Dee, then I hope to earn your vote,” Rice concluded.