Dear Trump, Enough Is Enough

The idea that Trump, the leader of the free world, would simply declare himself the winner of a U.S. election jarred even some of the most loyal of Republican stalwarts.

For nearly four years of the Trump presidency, the question to Republican lawmakers and leaders has been: Where would you draw the line when it comes to supporting President Donald Trump? The nasty tweets, the thousands of misstatements, the promotion of his business interests while in office? Maybe separating children from their parents when they came over the border illegally or threatening to withhold aid from states and governors he doesn't like?

Turns out, the line came as Trump faced the reality that he might lose the election, as mail-in ballot counting started to take must-win states out of Trump's reach. Even as millions of votes remained to be counted, Trump boasted of a victory early Wednesday. All week, Trump and his campaign have been insisting on social media that the president had won states like Pennsylvania and Georgia that had yet to be called.

That did it for a wide array of Republicans, and not just those who had already separated themselves from Trump. The idea that the leader of the free world would simply declare himself the winner – something Americans criticize in other countries and even punish other nations for doing – jarred the most loyal of Republican stalwarts.

Even as Trump's team filed a frenzy of lawsuits Wednesday and Thursday, Republicans mostly kept their distance, with just hard-core loyalists like former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump's children being the public face of the legal fight.

The absence of a rally-round-the-president movement clearly has annoyed Team Trump.

"The possibility that they're aboard a sinking ship could embolden Republicans to speak out."

"The total lack of action from virtually all of the '2024 GOP hopefuls' is pretty amazing," Donald Trump Jr. tweeted Thursday. "They have a perfect platform to show that they're willing & able to fight but they will cower to the media mob instead."

"Don't worry @realDonaldTrump will fight & they can watch as usual!" the president's son said in the tweet.

The GOP rebuff started after Trump, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, told supporters at the White House he had won the election and Democrats were trying to steal it from him.

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida – a harsh critic of Trump during the 2016 GOP primary campaign who became a dutiful ally of Trump's after that election, was blunt in his response. "The result of the presidential race will be known after every legally cast vote has been counted," Rubio tweeted.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has remained entangled with the Trump team, including serving on Trump's debate preparation crew, also pushed back on the president's claim that the vote count should stop and that widespread election fraud had occurred.

"There's just no basis to make that argument tonight. There just isn't," Christie said on ABC. 

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania called himself "very distressed" by what Trump said. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who was a helpful executor of Trump's agenda on the Hill – especially when it came to judicial appointments – put the brakes on Trump's train.

"It's not unusual for people to claim they've won the election. I can think of that happening on numerous occasions," McConnell told reporters after winning his own race against Democrat Amy McGrath. "But claiming you win the election is different from finishing the counting. And what we're going to see here in the next few days, both in the Senate races and in the presidential race, is each state will ultimately get to a final outcome."

Even Ben Shapiro, a conservative speaker popular among Trump supporters, drew the line at refusing to let the democratic process play out. "No, Trump has not already won the election, and it is deeply irresponsible for him to say he has," Shapiro tweeted.

During Trump's presidency, Republicans were often reluctant to publicly criticize him, wary of poking a political bear who had made it clear he would retaliate, sometimes by supporting an incumbent Republican's primary opponent.

But with Trump's path to reelection slipping, Republicans started breaking away. Having already gotten from Trump what they wanted in a Republican president – three Supreme Court justices and a big tax cut – Capitol Hill Republicans were not rushing to Trump's side as he blustered about an unearned win and threatened lawsuits in places where he was losing.

"First, the electoral count is not favoring him at the moment, and the possibility that they're aboard a sinking ship could embolden Republicans to speak out, especially those who have not been happy with his behavior," says Shauna Shames, a political science professor at Rutgers University-Camden.

"But also, most Republicans, unlike Trump, still support the rule of law, and the laws in the individual states are governing their vote counts," Shames adds. "I don't think good Republicans want to win at all costs, I think they still want democracy to function."

Trump has always prized personal loyalty, rewarding the faithful with pardons and praise, and publicly lashing out at those he feels have been unfair or not "nice" to him.

But while Capitol Hill Republicans have worked with Trump, the relationship has been largely transactional. Fewer GOP lawmakers have been ready to go to the wall for Trump by risking their own political futures. And this week, the integrity of America's democratic process became a factor as well.

"I don't think they're quite jumping (ship), but they're not eager to stay on the ship, either," says Jack Pitney, a Claremont McKenna College professor and former Republican Capitol Hill staffer. "If Trump loses, a lot of Republicans will not be saying his name very often," Pitney adds.

Zach Wamp, a former GOP congressman, could barely contain his anger as he addressed Trump's behavior. "I'm from ruby red Tennessee. This is Trump country," Wamp said in a conference call about the election process.

"It is the country, not the party, that matters most right now," with the integrity of the process mattering more than whether the winner is "a person named Trump or a person named Biden," he added. "It's the country that matters."

The Trump team continued its attack on the process Thursday, with the president tweeting "ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!" Among the most obvious discrepancies in Trump's statement are that military votes arrive after Election Day, and some states, including those with GOP legislatures, accept ballots postmarked by Election Day. In addition, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a tweet by a conservative media personality telling GOP-controlled state legislators to appoint whatever Electoral College electors they want, which – if lawmakers followed through – would take voters out of the equation entirely.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden's campaign was upbeat about the former vice president's chances and dismissive of the legal challenges, casting them as an indication Trump knew his time as president was coming to an end.

"These lawsuits don't have to have merit," Biden campaign attorney Bob Bauer told reporters in a briefing Thursday. "It's to create an opportunity for them to message falsely what is happening in the election process."

Jen O'Malley Dillon, Biden's campaign manager, said she was confident Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona – the last of which was already called for Biden by the Associated Press and Fox News – would be in Biden's column and that the team was hopeful about Georgia.

"Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States," O'Malley Dillon said. Trump, meanwhile, made it clear he is not leaving without a fight. But he may not have the Republican help on that mission he had in his term as president.