With Donald Trump headed to Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with GOP lawmakers including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), CNN's John King reported that some GOP lawmakers would just prefer not having to deal with him at all.
Speaking with host John Berman, King stated that ever since the former president first came on the political scene there have been Republicans who privately have taken shots at him but have held their tongues publicly because they fear his wrath.
"That Donald Trump is back on Capitol Hill of all places as Republican kingmaker is a wow," King told Berman who replied, "You know, it's interesting because there's the issue of what it says about him and, as I think, you know, he's got this skill, whether you liked him or not, this political resilience that is in many ways unprecedented, but what does it say about them?"
"What does it say about these Republican members who absolutely were saying other things on January 6, 7, 8, and 9th?" he asked.
"Many of them, some will never say this publicly, but in private conversations, many of them from the beginning had been trying to figure out how do we make him go away? How does he go away?" King replied. "When will the trap door open and he will go away because, never mind 5:00 A.M.. tweets when he was president, even never mind the insurrection. I know the people out there throw things at the TV."
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"But he's not a conservative, he's not one of us, he doesn't stand up against Vladimir Putin. You know, he's just not a traditional Reagan Republican or a Bush Cheney Republican," he said of the GOP lawmakers.
"They've wanted him gone a long time, but they haven't even figured out how," he elaborated, "and I think that the fact that the Marco Rubios and Ted Cruzes and the people who Trump just eviscerated in 2016 and still to this day doesn't really respect and thinks he dominates will just follow him. Follow him because they are afraid of his people they're afraid of the phone calls, the protests, the people back home. "
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