Top Republican ‘vehemently disagrees’ with Trump’s call to terminate Constitution to reinstate himself as president
A senior Republican congressman said he “vehemently disagrees” with Donald Trump’s bizarre assertion that the Constitution should be suspended so he can be reinstated as president.
Mike Turner, the ranking GOP member on the House Intelligence Committee, was asked about Mr Trump’s latest Truth Social rant on Face the Nation on Sunday.
“I believe, answering your question, that people certainly are going to take into consideration a statement like this as they evaluate a candidate,” Mr Turner said.
“I, first of all, vehemently disagree with the statement that Trump has made,” Mr Turner told host Margaret Brennan.
“Trump has made 1,000 statements in which I disagree.”
On Saturday, Mr Trump raged that a story showing Twitter’s content moderation staff discussing how to handle a New York Post story about the Hunter Biden laptop story was evidence of “massive and widespread fraud and deception”.
He called for the 2020 election results to be cast out and held again.
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution. Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!” he wrote.
Mr Turner described the former president’s dinner with Holocaust deniers Nick Fuentes and Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago last month as “atrocious”.
“I think everyone both condemns and is shocked and is disgusted and nauseated by the fact that we’re, even in this year, in 2022, having anyone that would make statements like that, nevertheless have anybody who would engage in a conversation with someone who’s making statements like that,” he said.
Mr Turner’s comments mark a rare instance of Republicans disavowing the former president’s increasingly unhinged posts on Truth Social.
GOP representative David Joyce declined to condemn Mr Trump’s remarks in an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday.
“You know, he says a lot of things, you have to take him in context,” he told host George Stephanopoulos.
Mr Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race last month.
