But on Capitol Hill, it’s a different story.
While lawmakers condemn the violence that took place on Capitol Hill, a number claim that Trump played no role at all, despite the then president’s ongoing rhetoric about mass electoral fraud, the regular promotion of the January 6 rally and incessant allegations that Congress and its vice president, Mike Pence, could reverse Biden’s election victory.
‘Here’s how I know the president did not play a role in that: because if the president had told people to fire the Capitol or attack the Capitol, there would not have been a few thousand. That would have been a few million, “said Rep. Brian Mast, a Republican in Florida.
Asked if he believes the election was stolen, Mast said: “I think there are some inaccuracies that we are not investigating.”
With polls in which about three-quarters of IDP voters believe there has been widespread fraud, many Republican lawmakers show little willingness to set the record with their voters, even as court after court rejects one Trump-backed lawsuit after another. in a futile attempt to throw out Biden’s victory.
“I am very concerned about the integrity of the election that I think some of their own laws and calculations have been violated in the state,” said Roger Marshall, a medical doctor and first-year student in Kansas. was not stolen. “That’s why we had to look at it.”
This view is not universal among Republicans, especially not senior Senate republics ready to move past the turbulent Trump era.
“I’m not,” said John Senyn, a senator from Texas, a member of the GOP leadership of the Senate, when asked if he intended to go to Mar-a-Lago to get Trump in Florida to visit, such as the top two Republicans of the House in the aftermath of January 6th.
But many others see Trump as still the dominant power and plan to remain an ally with him.
“I do not know how that would be the case and why we want that to be the case,” Rubio said when asked if Trump could not play a role in the party going forward, such as the Wyoming rep. Liz Cheney claims this week.
Rubio, who said he saw no evidence to suggest the election was stolen, also indicated he would have no doubt if Trump claimed to his supporters over the weekend that the election was stolen.
“He can say what he wants to say,” Rubio said.
House Republican will not support Johnson over election claims
“I think there are some real issues that have not been answered, and I think those are legitimate concerns about the election,” Johnson told CNN when asked if he thought the election was difficult. “I’m not afraid of the truth, OK?”
Johnson, who has yet to decide whether he wants to run for office, received a barrage of criticism in the spotlight this week during a sensational trial of an article by a suspected eyewitness who indicated that Trump supporters were not to blame for the violence on 6 January.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican in Illinois who has become a leading critic of the Trump election, called out Johnson – and told CNN “no” that he would not support the Republican in Wisconsin if he ran for a third term. .
“You can not sit in conspiracies,” Kinzinger said. “My basic criterion for anyone now is just to speak the truth. We need to forge less in fear – more in forging truth and inspiration.”
Yet Kinzinger is in the clear minority of his party.
“I agree that the election was compromised in several southern states,” he said. Clay Higgins, a Republican in Louisiana, said. “I look forward to getting it accurate.” Asked if he believes Biden was legally elected, Higgins said: “I believe the election was compromised and that investigations take time.”
“I want the states to investigate this – so I’m not going to judge in advance,” Rep. Joe Wilson, a Republican in South Carolina, said when asked if he believed the election was stolen.
Many Republicans will not take the Trump line to say the election was ‘stolen’. But at the same time, they suggest that November went horribly wrong.
Rep. Jim Jordan, who helped lead the indictment on the House floor to overturn the election results in six states, said he “never” said on the floor that the election was “stolen.” But he quickly added: “Fifty million Republicans are essentially concerned – more than one-third of the electorate. And several states, the most important states, have changed their electoral laws in an unconstitutional way.”
However, attempts in the courts to challenge the state election rules have been rejected – even rejected by Trump-appointed judges, including in the US Supreme Court.
Senator Rick Scott, who chairs the Senate GOP’s campaign, voted to block Pennsylvania’s election results even after the riot on January 6. Scott said no on Thursday when asked if he regretted the vote, arguing that the state “does not follow the law in accepting ballots after election day, although the courts confirm Pennsylvania’s actions.
Asked if he agrees with Trump that the election was hampered or stolen, Scott would simply say, ‘We’ll see what he says. I know Joe Biden is the president. ‘
Yet critics blame top Republicans for misleading them by refusing to say the election was free and fair. The Republican leader of the House, Kevin McCarthy, after January 6, along with the efforts to reverse the election results, and signed a lawsuit in Texas to invalidate millions of votes, as well as his no. 2, Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican who declined to say over the weekend that election was not stolen.
A minority of Republicans of the House believe that the leadership of their party should be clear that the election is legal and that it was not stolen.
“I think we need to move forward,” Rep. Tom Reed, a Republican in New York, said who is co-chair of the dual Problem Solvers Caucus.
“We are not going to try to compete and gain power by blaming the stolen elections,” Kinzinger said. Asked if he could support McCarthy as speaker if the GOP takes back the majority next year, Kinzinger suggests it depends on the message the Republican of the House accepts.
“It’s still two years,” Kinzinger said.
Anxiety in the ranks over Trump’s speech and prospects in 2022
Republicans are indeed worried that the party’s divisions over Trump could threaten their prospects of winning the majority in both houses in 2022, something that was illustrated last week when former President McConnell struck out in strikingly personal terms after the leader of the Senate accused Trump of a “shameful breach of duty” and of being responsible for the events of January 6. McConnell declined to comment this week on whether he regrets his remarks about Trump.
“I believe it will be much cooler if we try to recover and if we stop kicking our own ass,” said Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican in Louisiana.
Asked if he believes the election was stolen, Kennedy declined to run. “I said everything I want to say on this issue. At some point, you need to stop talking yesterday,” he told CNN.
Yet Trump may well bring attention to the election results again when he speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando on Sunday, even if several Republicans do not want him to suggest that the election was stolen.
“That would be a big mistake,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump confidant, who urged the former president to prevent the election from being hampered and instead focus on comparing his policies with Biden. .
“The election is over, and the losses are tough,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican in West Virginia and part of McConnell’s leadership team. “I think the healing part of the nation is unity that the president can better serve the nation by accepting the fact.”
But some Republicans see it differently. “I’m fine with him saying that,” Mast said when asked about the potential for Trump to tell the CPAC crowd that the election was stolen.
Cheney said the decision depends on CPAC whether he should speak there, but added: “I do not believe he should play a role in the future of the party or the country.”
But Cheney’s Wyoming senator, first-year GOP senator Cynthia Lummis, disagrees. “I do not agree with Liz Cheney on that at all,” Lummis said.
And Cheney is indeed less than his view of Trump among Republicans in the Capitol – even more than a month after he left office.
“She’s an outlier in the party,” said Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky.
CNN’s Olanma Mang contributed to this report.