World News | GOP Signals Unwillingness to Part with Trump After Riot

Palm Beach (Florida), Jan 27 (AP) Donald Trump has lost his social media megaphone, the power of government and the unequivocal support of his party's elected leaders. But a week after leaving the White House in disgrace, a large-scale Republican defection that would ultimately purge him from the party appears unlikely.

Many Republicans refuse to publicly defend Trump's role in sparking the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol. But as the Senate prepares for an impeachment trial for Trump's incitement of the riot, few seem willing to hold the former president accountable.

After House Republicans who backed his impeachment found themselves facing intense backlash — and Trump's lieutenants signaled the same fate would meet others who joined them — Senate Republicans voted overwhelmingly Tuesday for an attempt to dismiss his second impeachment trial. Only five Republican senators rejected the challenge to the trial.

Trump's conviction was considered a real possibility just days ago after lawmakers whose lives were threatened by the mob weighed the appropriate consequences — and the future of their party.

But the Senate vote on Tuesday is a sign that while Trump may be held in low regard in Washington following the riots, a large swath of Republicans is leery of crossing his supporters, who remain the majority of the party's voters.

“The political winds within the Republican Party have blown in the opposite direction,” said Ralph Reed, chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a Trump ally.

“Republicans have decided that even if one believes he made mistakes after the November election and on January 6, the policies Trump championed and victories he won from judges to regulatory rollback to life to tax cuts were too great to allow the party to leave him on the battlefield.”

The vote came after Trump, who decamped last week to his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, began wading back into politics between rounds of golf. He took an early step into the Arkansas governor's race by endorsing former White House aide Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and backed Kelli Ward, an ally who won reelection as chair of Arizona's Republican Party after his endorsement.

At the same time, Trump's team has given allies an informal blessing to campaign against the 10 House Republicans who voted in favour of impeachment.

After Michigan Representative Peter Meijer backed impeachment, Republican Tom Norton announced a primary challenge. Norton appeared on longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon's podcast in a bid to raise campaign contributions.

On Thursday, another Trump loyalist, Representative Matt Gaetz, plans to travel to Wyoming to condemn home-state Representative Liz Cheney, a House GOP leader who said after the Capitol riot that “there has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. — a star with Trump's loyal base —- has encouraged Gaetz on social media and embraced calls for Cheney's removal from House leadership.

Trump remains livid with Republican Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia, who refused to support Trump's false charges that Georgia's elections were fraudulent. Kemp is up for reelection in 2022, and Trump has suggested former Representative Doug Collins run against him.

Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman's decision not to seek reelection in 2022 opens the door for Representative Jim Jordan, one of Trump's most enthusiastic supporters, to seek the seat. Several other Republicans, some far less supportive of the former president, are also considering running.

Trump's continued involvement in national politics so soon after his departure marks a dramatic break from past presidents, who typically stepped out of the spotlight, at least temporarily. Former President Barack Obama was famously seen kitesurfing on vacation with billionaire Richard Branson shortly after he left office, and former President George W. Bush took up painting.

Trump, who craves the media spotlight, was never expected to burrow out of public view.

“We will be back in some form,” he told supporters at a farewell event before he left for Florida. But exactly what form that will take is a work in progress.

Trump remains deeply popular among Republican voters and is sitting on a huge pot of cash — well over $50 million — that he could use to prop up primary challenges against Republicans who backed his impeachment or refused to support his failed efforts to challenge the election results using bogus allegations of mass voter fraud in states like Georgia. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)