GOP congressman vows to oppose ‘loser’ Trump if former president runs again

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A Republican congressman in Ohio vowed to do everything he could to prevent former President Donald Trump from earning a 2024 GOP nomination for president, and denounced him in a painful interview.

Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Rep. Anthony Gonzalez addressed the former president, who he said was a “loser” who refused to acknowledge his own failure in the 2020 election.

“We have to be a party of truth, and the cold truth is that Donald Trump took us into a ditch on January 6. The former president lied to us. He lied to each of us, and in doing so, he paid us in the House, Senate, and White House, ”Gonzalez said.

“I see, initially, someone who shouldn’t be able to sit down again because of what he did on January 6th, but I also see someone who has been hugely defeated politically. I don’t know why anyone who wants to win future elections is following that. I don’t understand this ethically and certainly not in politics. None of them make sense. “

Gonzalez had previously announced that he would not seek a third term in Congress, but said in an interview on Sunday that he would re-enter politics and place a presidential bid if necessary to prevent Mr Trump from becoming the party’s standard-bearer again.

“If he is the nominee again in ’24, I will do everything I can to make sure he doesn’t win. I don’t vote for Democrats, but if that’s to find a viable third party or if that’s to try to beat him in the primaries, whatever it is, that’s where I’m going to spend my time, ”the Ohio congressman said.

Mr. Gonzalez had previously won re-election in Ohio’s 16th district by nearly 30 points in 2020, however, the state’s redistricting means his district is set to be drawn again before the next election, which is talk about his future.

In February, before it became clear that the redistricting would mean the end of Mr Gonzalez’s re -election, he confronted the plots of Republicans supporting Trump in the state hoping he would lose a major election in response to his support for second impeachment of Mr Trump by the House.

Mr Gonzalez’s impeachment vote resulted in his criticism of the Medina County Republican Party and a call for his resignation to another regional GOP group.

He defended his vote to punish Mr Trump for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in February in a podcast, explaining that the slow response of the National Guard and other law enforcement agencies had convinced him .

“The reality is that Congress and the vice president were attacked by a mob and the president didn’t step in my opinion in nearly the right way to calm it down, to stop it,” Gonzalez said at the time.

“You know, I think, I would probably refuse if he saw it all and immediately said‘ hey cut this out, here comes the National Guard, we’re done, it’s not what I want ’but instead Pass a lot of time and the first tweet that came out was really attacking the vice president while the Capitol was under siege, ”he continued.

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