Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC), one of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, stated this week that Trump is “in the past” and “not the future of the Republican Party,” only to later lose his primary battle to Trump-endorsed state Rep. Russell Fry (R) Tuesday night.
Defending his impeachment vote in an interview with NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard, Rice said, “Oh, I think it’s advantageous to me politically. I think I’m just telling the truth.”
“You know, the truth will set you free. And I think that Donald Trump is not the future of the Republican Party. I think, you know, he was a consequential president, and we accomplished things that lifted all people up while he was president,” he said, adding, however, that Trump “is the past, and we need to move on.”
WATCH:
WATCH: Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) defends his vote to impeach fmr. Pres. Trump, telling @VaughnHillyard that Trump “is the past.”@RepTomRice: “The Constitution is the source of our freedom and our prosperity. … I don’t want Donald Trump or anybody else to rip it to shreds.” pic.twitter.com/31ubDWNNSD
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 14, 2022
Rice’s remarks came prior to his loss in Tuesday’s primary, as Trump-endorsed state Rep. Fry handily defeated the incumbent Tuesday night, garnering 51.1 percent of the vote to Rice’s 24.5 percent as of Wednesday morning.
“What an honor. What a win,” Fry wrote Wednesday morning. “I’m exhausted in every single way but we put it all on the field. The fight continues to November, and then after that we take this country back! #AmericaFirst”:
What an honor. What a win.
I’m exhausted in every single way but we put it all on the field. The fight continues to November, and then after that we take this country back! #AmericaFirst
— Rep. Russell Fry (@RussellFrySC) June 15, 2022
Mere days ago, Fry told Breitbart News Saturday that people are “fed up with Congressman Tom Rice,” as his “impeachment vote really showed us who he was, and quite frankly, exposed a big frustration with him in general, which is where has he been on some of these issues that matter to the American people.”
“And we see this continued leftward lurch,” Fry added.
Donald Trump praised the victories Trump-endorsed candidates obtained Tuesday night, with the exception of Katie Arrington, who lost to Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).
“Every single endorsed by Trump candidate won last night, by big margins, with the exception of one very long shot who did FAR better than anticipated against an incumbent. The ‘Impeacher’ was ousted without even a runoff,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “A GREAT night!”
Despite Rice’s analysis, poll after poll shows Trump as the undisputed frontrunner in hypothetical 2024 GOP presidential primary matchups.
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