CONWAY, SC — Tom Rice, the South Carolina congressman who voted as one of 10 House Republicans to impeach President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6 attacks, has a catchphrase to describe the former president’s crusade against him : Trump’s Very Presidential Traveling Revenge Circus.
Mr. Trump has made the removal of Mr. Rice, a five-term congressman, one of his top priorities in Tuesday’s primary in the state. He cast his support in the Republican primary for Mr. Rice behind state representative Russell Fry, this week called for a meeting for Mr. Fry and described Mr. Rice as a “deteriorating RINO,” the acronym for Republican in name only. , a conservative slur.
“He raised his hand and that was the end of his political career — or we hope it was,” Mr Trump said of Mr Rice’s vote to impeach him.
In a 35-minute interview Friday with his wife, Wrenzie, after a barbecue luncheon campaign event, Mr. Rice sounded just like a man fighting for his political life. His campaign doesn’t count on an outright victory against Mr. Fry, but instead brace himself for a tough second round with him.
But while some, after crossing over Mr. Trump, have tried to save their political careers by retracting their comments or withdrawing from Congress, Mr. Rice has doubled down.
“To me, his gross failure — his unforgivable failure — was when it started,” Mr Rice said of the Jan. 6 riots. “He saw it happen. He enjoyed it. And he took no action to stop it. I think he had a duty to try to stop it, and he failed in that duty.”
Mr. Rice, a conservative pro-corporate and self-proclaimed Republican of the Chamber of Commerce, helped draft Mr. Trump’s sweeping new tax code in 2017. Five years after those reforms and 17 months after the January 6 attacks, he argued that the former president was longer welcome in the GOP
“He’s the past,” Mr. Rice said of Mr. Trump. “I hope he doesn’t run again. And I think if he runs again, he’ll hurt the Republican party. We urgently need someone who brings people together. And he is not.”
Mr. Rice said the Jan. 6 prime-time hearing on Thursday night, featuring footage of the Capitol riot and incriminating testimony from close Trump associates, “is an exclamation point for what we’ve done,” referring to the 10 Republicans of the House who provided support. deposition.
In the days following the Capitol riots, Mr. Rice said, he considered voting to impeach Mr Trump, and spent that Saturday and Sunday in his home congressional district reading the dozens of stories he’d asked his staff to do. send him about the president’s whereabouts on January 6. When he learned of the president’s refusal to stop the attack, he became furious. When it came time for his vote, he said he had “not a single question on my mind” about whether Mr. Trump should be held accountable.
“I did it then,” he said. ‘And I will do that tomorrow. And I do it the next day or the day after. I have a duty to uphold the Constitution. And that’s what I did.”
However, Mr. Rice did not vote to certify the election, but said he had become concerned about the voting disparities in Pennsylvania described in a letter to the Republican leadership of the House.
At a Republican House meeting a month after the Capitol riots, he defended Liz Cheney for her vote to impeach and criticized minority leader Kevin McCarthy for his continued embrace of the former president, according to the audio. of the exchange.
“Kevin went to Mar-a-Lago this weekend, shook his hand, took a photo and founded Trumpmajority.com. Personally, I find that offensive,” Mr Rice said at the time.
In the months following the vote, Mr. Rice, like his wife, has become an outcast in Mr. Trump. “I don’t feel like I belong to that group anymore,” Ms. Rice said Friday, referring to the Republican base.
Mr. Trump’s efforts to influence Republican primary voters and discredit Mr. Rice have left the congressman both frustrated and puzzled. He has come to see them as a political stunt.
“Bring on the circus,” he said of Mr Trump’s involvement in the primaries. “You know, some people are afraid of clowns. I am not afraid of clowns.”
Jonathan Martin reporting contributed.