Republican senators say they feel a sense of growing regret over not standing up toPresident Trumpsooner — a day after a violent mob ransacked the Capitol building in one of the darkest and most humiliating days in U.S. history.
One Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss his conversations with GOP colleagues acknowledged GOP lawmakers should have served as a stronger check on the president over the past four years.
“We should have done more to push back, both against his rhetoric and some of the things he did legislatively,” said the lawmaker. “The mistake we made is that we always thought he was going to get better. We thought that once he got the nomination and then once he got a Cabinet, he was going to get better, he was going to be more presidential.”
Many Republicans are shell-shocked over the horrific scenes at the Capitol and seem to be trying to come to grips with their role in the disaster.
The mob that hit the Capitol was filled with people who believed Trump’s claims of a rigged election despite a lack of any serious evidence. It served as a symbol of the fact that many Americans are now moving through a reality no longer based on real facts — or the truth.
The GOP senator said he and his colleagues expected Trump would eventually accept the results of the election after courts ruled against his legal team’s challenges, which were resoundingly dismissed by Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges alike.
They don't want impeachment because it will force them to go on record on Trump's incitement. They know that there's very, very bad stuff that will come out in the coming weeks and months about what was going on behind the scenes, and their vote is going to haunt them politically
"Romans worried constantly about their lawful Republic descending into anarchic violence, but none imagined that this descent would happen so quickly or with such terrible results."@ThePublicSquarehttps://t.co/TCobv7VjAV
