President Trump has no intention of resigning or “leaving the public stage at all” following Trump supporters’ breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said.
Gaetz told ‘Fox Report Weekend’ host Jon Scott on Sunday that Trump remains the leader of people who believe America’s best days are still ahead, who support law enforcement and who “need to stand together and fight against a radical left-wing agenda that it appears that Joe Biden intends to usher in with unified control over the government, with the House and the Senate.”
“President Trump continues to be the most powerful, the most influential Republican on the planet Earth,” Gaetz added. “It’s my expectation that while he’ll be leaving the White House in several days when his term is lawfully complete, he will continue to weigh in on matters that are important to the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him, who believe that this election process that we went through in 2020 still deserves more scrutiny and who expect that there will still be a constituency of people fighting for the America first agenda.”
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Gaetz’s comments come as the House is preparing to be move forward with a resolution to impeach President Trump, according to a letter from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She refers to the president as an “imminent threat” to both the U.S. Constitution and democracy.
On Monday, House leaders will work to pass legislation that would force Vice President Mike Pence and the rest of the president’s Cabinet to oust Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment. If it is blocked by Republicans, which is almost certain, the House will convene for a full House vote on Tuesday.
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“This impeachment would be unnecessary, it would be divisive, and it’s only being done because Democrats want to keep the focus on President Trump,” Gaetz said. “You would think that with just nine to 10 days left in the Trump presidency for this term, you would have Democrats eager to focus on what Joe Biden would be bringing to the country, his exciting picks for the cabinet, but you see they have to continue to hold together a very fragile coalition by maintaining the focus on President Trump.”
The congressman urged Republicans to continue their focus on “election integrity,” including outside Washington, such as “inspiring state Legislatures to have strong voter identification requirements,” conducting investigations into the vote-by-mail system, and to not allow election officials to “deviate from the instructions that state Legislatures set on the running of elections and the selection of electors.”
Gaetz is among a group of Republican lawmakers being called on to resign for their efforts against the certification of the Electoral College for President-elect Joe Biden.
“I think that cancellation of members of Congress, whether it be calls for Hawley and Cruz and myself and Mo Brooks to resign, or calls for even worse, dovetail with what we see with Big Tech,” Gaetz said. “No longer is it acceptable for the political left to participate in elections and try to participate in debate, they’re trying to deplatform people who don’t agree with them and to say that folks who maybe inspire a different political message are worthy of an expulsion for worse and I don’t think that’s going to do anything to animate the calls for unity that we’ve seen across the political spectrum.”
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Gaetz also addressed Big Tech’s removal of Trump from their platforms, arguing that the decision shows they want to “define the four corners of acceptable debate,” constraining thought and engagement.
“We cannot live in a world where the terms of service on Twitter are more important than the terms laid out by our founding fathers in the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” Gaetz said.
Gaetz said he is joining forces with Rhode Island Democrat Rep. David Cicilline to have “far more aggressive enforcement of our antirust laws” in order to “reset the relationship between consumers and the digital platforms that they use.”
He also suggested that President Trump could take action in the final days of his presidency to “ensure that people are still able to speak out” about election integrity on social media.
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