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A big share of Republicans need Trump to stay head of the get together, CNBC survey reveals

US President Donald Trump looks on after presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Celtics basketball legend Bob Cousy in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on August 22, 2019.

Almond Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

A CNBC poll conducted in the days leading up to the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump found that a large segment of Republicans want him to remain party leader, but the majority of Americans want him out of politics.

The CNBC All-America Economic Survey shows that 54% of Americans want Trump “completely removed from politics”. That was the opinion of 81% of Democrats and 47% of Independents, but only 26% of Republicans.

When it comes to Republicans, 74% want him to stay active in some way, including 48% who want him to stay head of the Republican Party, 11% who want him to start a third party, and 12% who who say he should remain active in politics, but not as party leader.

“When we talk about Donald Trump’s future, the poll right now shows that he still has that strong core support in his own party that really wants him to continue to be its leader,” said Jay Campbell, an associate at Hart Research and the democratic pollster for the poll.

But Micah Roberts, the poll’s Republican pollster and partner with Public Opinion Strategies, emphasized the change from Trump as president. Pre-election polls regularly showed that Trump has a GOP approval rating of around 90%, which means that at least some Republicans have deviated from Trump.

The online poll of 1,000 Americans across the country has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5%. It was conducted February 2-7 ahead of Trump’s Senate riot and sparking the January 6th riot in the Capitol. In the unlikely event of a conviction, the Senate could prevent Trump from ever holding public office again.

The poll shows that Trump continues to enjoy strong support among non-college Americans, a key population group for the GOP: 89% of the group want him to stay in politics, including 52% who want him to stay head of the Republican Party . That’s the highest percentage of any group and a potential red flag for Republican Party leaders if they vote to condemn Trump.

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Politics

Exiled From Committees, Greene Says She Is ‘Freed’ to Push Republicans to the Proper

WASHINGTON – A day after the House decided to ban her from the congressional committees, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene sent a defiant message to both parties on Friday, warning them that the punishment had only “freed” them, Republicans followed suit to push right and insist on their allegiance to former President Donald J. Trump.

In a far-reaching press conference outside the Capitol, Ms. Greene, a first-time Republican from Georgia, said Thursday’s House vote to remove her from two bodies robbed her constituents of an important vote in Congress. it had helped her personally.

“In the future, I have been set free,” said Ms. Greene, adding, “I will hold the Republican Party accountable and push them to the right.”

Who is Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Updated February 4, 2021

Ms. Greene’s comments and determination to remain in the limelight erased all hopes of the House Republican leaders that she would calm down after being rebuked on behalf of Party unity. And it underscored the sway the former president, who extolled Ms. Greene, still has some of the loudest voices in Congress.

“The party is his,” said Ms. Greene. “It doesn’t belong to anyone else.”

On Thursday, eleven Republicans voted with all of the Democrats in the chamber to strike Ms. Greene’s committees after a stream of social media posts advocated dangerous conspiracy theories and political violence, including the execution of Top -Democrats.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, had refused to discipline them and forced an uncomfortable vote for House Republicans who choose between defending Ms. Greene or alienating her constituents who share similar beliefs , had to decide.

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Apr. 5, 2021, 6:53 p.m. ET

As a result, there were deep divisions among Republicans over how to move forward as a party. In the days leading up to the vote on Ms. Greene, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Washington, denounced what he called “crazy lies” and claimed that such conspiracy theories were a “cancer” for the party.

Several other high-ranking Republican senators had joined him in reprimanding Ms. Greene and saying she could not become the face of the party.

Ms. Greene has shown varying degrees of remorse for adopting QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy movement, in the past and for her previous comments advocating the killing of spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi, falsely suggesting several Mass shootings secretly carried out by the government were actors and spread a number of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic conspiracy theories.

In emotional utterances on the floor of the house, Ms. Greene regretted some of her previous comments Thursday and turned down many of her most eccentric and disgusting statements. For example, she admitted that there were attacks on September 11, 2001, but did not apologize and said that she was “allowed to believe things that were not true.”

When asked by a CNN reporter on Friday whether she would apologize for some of her most insulting comments before she was elected to Congress, Ms. Greene first urged the reporter to stand up for the network’s coverage of the Trump-Russia investigation to excuse.

But when another journalist squeezed her, she clearly apologized for the first time.

“Of course I am sorry for saying all the things that are wrong and offensive,” said Ms. Greene. “And I mean that sincerely, and I like to say that. I think it’s good to say when we’ve done something wrong. “

But hours earlier it had sounded a different note.

“I woke up this morning and literally laughed as I thought about what a bunch of idiots the Democrats (+11) are for giving someone like me free time,” she wrote on Twitter. “In this tyrannical Democratic government, conservative Republicans have no say in committees anyway. Oh this will be fun! “

Glenn Thrush contributed to the coverage.

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Home Exiles Marjorie Taylor Greene From Panels, as Republicans Rally Round Her

Even so, the episode sparked deep divisions among Republicans over how to move forward as a party. In the days leading up to the vote on Ms. Greene, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Washington, denounced what he called “crazy lies” and claimed that such conspiracy theories were a “cancer” in the world party. Several other senior Republican senators had joined him in denouncing Ms. Greene and saying she could not become the face of the party.

To warn Democrats about the move, House Republicans tabled their own proposal to remove Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee. She cited comments, including that Israel “hypnotized” the world for their “evil deeds.” “Ms. Omar publicly apologized for these comments, which were charged with anti-Semitism.

“If this is the new standard, I look forward to continuing the standard,” McCarthy said, adding that Republicans have a “long list” of Democrats to remove from their committees.

On Wednesday, after Democrats announced they would reprimand Ms. Greene, Mr McCarthy made a long, tortured statement condemning her comments, saying they had no place among Republicans in the House but argued that they did didn’t deserve to be punished for you. Moving on Wednesday night after the controversial, hour-long Republican meeting, he told reporters that Ms. Greene had privately apologized for her earlier remarks and suggested that it was time to move on.

“She said she knew nothing about lasers or all the different things that were raised about her,” McCarthy said, apparently referring to a Facebook post Ms. Greene wrote in 2018 that indicated devastating wildfires were happening in California a space lasers controlled by a prominent Jewish banking family with ties to powerful democrats.

“Now if we are to judge what other members have said before they are members of Congress, I think it will be difficult for Democrats to get someone on the committee,” he added.

According to Eleanor Neff Powell, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, dismissal from committees is usually reserved for lawmakers on trial, criminal investigation, or otherwise in particularly outrageous ways with their party.

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How Republicans Are Warping Actuality Across the Capitol Assault

Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican freshman who voted for the indictment against Mr. Trump, said in an interview with The Daily, the New York Times audio podcast, that the spread of false information in the base of “two worlds” among the Republicans of Congress – one based on reality and another based on conspiracy.

“The world that said this was actually a landslide victory for Donald Trump, but everything has been stolen and changed and the votes have been flipped and the Dominion voting systems,” Meijer said, describing what he called the “fever swamp of conspiracy theories.”

In a video press conference on Friday, Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina appealed directly to the still dubious Republicans. “Biden actually won,” he said. “The election was not rigged.”

Your words, contrary to Mr. Trump’s own message and that of many supporters, underscore a challenge to the Republican Party. The rioters targeted police officers, members of Congress and even Vice President Mike Pence. However, much of the party’s base and many of its leaders at the local and state levels remain loyal to Mr Trump.

Another Republican who backed the impeachment, South Carolina representative Tom Rice, admitted in an interview with The Associated Press that in his re-election efforts in 2022, his vote would likely make him face a major opponent of the GOP – a threat to the another nine Republicans who voted for impeachment will likely face too.

“FIRST GOP Primary Challenger Announces Run in Michigan Against Freshman Rep. Meijer – One of 10 GOP Turncoats,” read a headline on Gateway Pundit, the right-wing and often conspiratorial news agency that influences Mr. Trump’s grassroots.

Reached by email, the website’s founder, Jim Hoft, did not respond to questions but sent in several of his own news articles relating to allegations that Antifa was involved in the Capitol attack – citing the case of one Man named John Sullivan, who has the right-wing media named an “antifa leader” to prove his infiltration theory. He was the same man quoted by Mr Giuliani in tweets threatening to “blame John and the 226 members of Antifa who started the Capitol’s” uprising. “

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Business

‘We Must Stabilize’: Huge Enterprise Breaks With Republicans

But last week seemed like a breaking point. Big business could obviously tolerate working with Mr Trump, despite his chauvinism, flirtation with white nationalism, and impunity claims, but the president’s apparent willingness to undermine democracy itself seemed a step too far.

“That thing was a little different. I mean, we’ve had a turmoil in DC, ”said Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s general manager. “No CEO I know tolerates this in any way. We shouldn’t have someone gassing a mob. “

The precipitation was quick. After the president admonished his supporters to march on the Capitol, executives used their strongest language yet to disapprove of Mr Trump, and some of his longtime allies left. Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot, a billionaire and ardent supporter of the president, waived Trump and told CNBC, “I feel betrayed.”

Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have suspended or banned Mr. Trump’s accounts. Amazon, Apple and Google have cut ties with Parler, a messaging app popular with its supporters.

Charles Schwab, the Republican-founded brokerage firm that backed Mr Trump, said it would close its political action committee entirely. And many companies have worked with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to punish Mr. Trump’s supporters in Congress by depriving them of crucial resources.

“There will be consequences for those members of Congress who were involved in starting and supporting the insurrection, no question about it,” said Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines chief executive officer.

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Some Republicans assume Trump is making an attempt to sabotage GOP, Mike Allen says

Axios co-founder Mike Allen told CNBC on Thursday that some Republicans believe President Donald Trump will hurt the party’s chances in next week’s Georgia Senate runoff.

“Republicans think a lot about President Trump sabotaging this race. He has done so much not to help these candidates,” Allen said on Squawk Box, referring to GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue .

“I talk to Republicans and they look at what’s going on and they say, ‘You know, he has to think,’ I want to send a message, if I don’t vote, Republicans are in trouble, ‘” he added added Allen, a longtime Washington political reporter.

US President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and US Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler arrive for a rally on December 5, 2020 in Valdosta, Georgia, USA.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Allen’s comments come ahead of the crucial runoff elections on Tuesday that will determine the balance of power in the US Senate. Loeffler runs against Democrat Raphael Warnock, while Perdue’s opponent is Democrat Jon Ossoff. Trump was promoting Loeffler and Perdue earlier this month, and he will hold another rally in the state on Monday.

Republicans only need to win one of the races to get a 100-seat majority in the Senate. The GOP currently has a 50-48 advantage.

If both Democrats are victorious in Georgia, that would make the difference for their party, as Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris would be the casting vote. It would also mean the Democrats control both houses of Congress as well as the White House after President-elect Joe Biden was inaugurated on Jan. 20. Biden defeated Trump in the November 3 election, partly aided by his victory in Georgia. Biden was the first Democrat to win the state since 1992.

“Maintaining a Republican majority in the Senate was a priority for the president from the start,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told CNBC on Thursday. “He will rally voters to support Senators Perdue and Loeffler and warn that their opponents are left-wing extremists who support higher taxes, the job-damaging Green New Deal and the amnesty for 11 million illegal aliens.”

Allen, who co-founded Politico before launching Axios in January 2017, said Republicans were initially confident that Loeffler and Perdue would defeat their Democratic challengers. “Georgia is still pretty red despite having won a president there, so Republicans said, ‘In the end, that might be fine.’ They’re not sure it’s okay anymore, and a lot has to do with the president, “Allen said.

Trump refused to give the election to Biden, falsely claiming that he lost the race due to massive election fraud. He also attacked numerous elected Republicans in Georgia, including Governor Brian Kemp, to help run the elections.

Trump has also pushed Congress to increase stimulus checks for Americans to $ 2,000 and hold a $ 900 billion coronavirus relief package that included $ 600 in direct payments for days before it was finally signed. He has continued his call for $ 2,000 checks, a proposal that is Democrat backed and not popular with Senate Republicans.

Ossoff and Warnock quickly took up Trump’s demand last week and used it to beat their opponents. However, Loeffler and Perdue have since endorsed Trump’s proposal for $ 2,000 checks.

“Republicans look at it and say like President Trump is saying something every day that either sums up these candidates or makes some of these … voters who may be sick of Trump anyway but who are Republicans in their bones are like every day he gives them a reason either not to come out or to choose to go the other way, “Allen said.

CNBC reached out to the Loeffler and Perdue campaigns and the White House to comment on Allen’s remarks.