Top conservative commentator Charlie Sykes tore into the Republican senators who stuck by Donald Trump and voted on Thursday to protect his fake national emergency.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the conservative commentator said that while it was good that a dozen Republican lawmakers stood up to Trump, it’s not nearly enough.
“This was a very strong rebuke of the president and 12 senators breaking with the president is certainly a beginning of something,” Sykes said. “But it could have been bigger and should have been bigger.”
Video:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
.@SykesCharlie says it’s not nearly enough that 12 Republicans rebuked Trump on his national emergency. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/NB97M7fuVe
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) March 15, 2019
Sykes said:
This was a very strong rebuke of the president and 12 senators breaking with the president is certainly a beginning of something. But it could have been bigger and should have been bigger. I think that a lot of senators who understood that this was an easy vote, this was a red line vote and yet they chose to cave in, they chose to go along with the White House rather than the constitution. … Tom Tillis was afraid of a primary. You have Ben Sasse who is up for reelection. You have Ted Cruz who now can no longer be taken seriously as a constitutional conservative. You have a lot of other Republican senators who really held their nose and I think they’re going to pay a price in terms of their reputation for going against what they had said. I mean a lot of these guys are on record, on tape denouncing Obama’s use of executive authority and their hypocrisy was really on display and also, quite frankly, their spinelessness was on display as well.
The GOP doesn’t deserve any credit
The media takeaway from today’s vote on Trump’s national emergency seems to be that Republicans are finally standing up to the president after spending the last two years repeatedly letting him get away with anything and everything.
But the American people shouldn’t be fooled.
Despite the fact that a dozen Republican senators trying to keep their seats rebuked the president on Thursday, there were still more than three times as many GOPers – 41 to be exact – who were happy to bow down to Trump.
Until the Republican Party does the right thing and unanimously stands up to this president – the most unfit and corrupt in history – they deserve no credit.
Follow Sean Colarossi on Facebook and Twitter
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
