The sound of silence

Daniel Desrochers

Former President Donald Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign on Tuesday night. In the halls of the U.S. Capitol, it barely made a blip.

Rather than rush to endorse the former president, who still holds considerable sway among the Republican base, members have appeared more inclined to keep their options open.

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who led the effort to object to the certification of the 2020 presidential results, didn’t want to weigh on Trump. Both before and after the former president’s announcement, Hawley said he was more focused on the U.S. Senate election in Georgia and having a conversation about the policy priorities of the Republican Party.

“I think who should be the nominee has yet to be decided,” Hawley said. “And ultimately, people will decide that.”

On the Kansas side, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, a longtime Trump ally who objected to the certification of the 2020 presidential election, didn’t weigh in on Trump’s announcement. Republican Sen. Jerry Moran has said he’s more inclined to support the potential candidacy of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a line that was also used by Rep. Jake LaTurner on Thursday.

“Trump’s policies were really good for the country,” said LaTurner, a Republican who represents eastern Kansas. “But I think Mike Pompeo deserves the time and space to make this decision. Should he get in the race, he’ll have our full support.”

Even Kansas Attorney General-elect Kris Kobach, who was a Trump adviser on immigration policy and served as vice chair of Trump’s ill-fated voter fraud commission, wouldn’t comment on Trump’s announcement.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign is pumping out endorsements from the sort of far-right figures that Republicans have spent the past week criticizing him for elevating, like Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who narrowly lost her election and has refused to concede, and Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican whose siblings once ran an ad begging people not to vote for their own brother.

Trump’s announcement comes in a moment where the Republican Party is undergoing a period of public introspection, with the party divided on the reason it came up short in a year where Republicans were favored to win the House of Representatives by a wide margin.

Politicians who came into power on the back of Trump’s movement, like Hawley, have argued that the party needs to focus more on conservative working class voters, focusing on some of Trump’s most loyal supporters.

Others, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have said independents and moderates associate the party with chaos and extremism, in an apparent jab at Trump.

But this isn’t the first time some Republican leaders have given Trump the cold shoulder. The former president has maintained control over the party even after the revelation of a tape in which he was caught saying he could grope women without permission, an impeachment over whether he improperly withheld military aid from Ukraine and an attack on the Capitol by his supporters, who were urged on by his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Each time, Republicans came back to Trump. Members who blamed Trump for the insurrection on the Senate floor later voted to acquit him of impeachment charges.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Kansas City, said he doesn’t think the fact that Republicans struggled in the midterms will change things.

“I’ve seen this inning being played out before and I know it stops,” Cleaver said. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen them even condemn him on the floor. I was in here, watched condemnations, and the following week it was ‘you guys ought to leave him alone. He’s a great guy. Got to make America great again.’”

More from Missouri

A Missouri judge ruled on Tuesday that the Missouri Attorney General’s Office violated state open records law when it was under the leadership of Sen. Josh Hawley. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem found that Hawley’s office had “knowingly and purposefully” violated state open records law when it refused to turn over emails that showed coordination between Hawley’s campaign consultants and his taxpayer-funded staff.

Here are headlines from across the state:

And across Kansas

Johnson County taxpayers paid for Sheriff Calvin Hayden to make a trip to Las Vegas, where he spread bogus claims that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. Hayden received a $69 per diem for each day he was in Las Vegas and got a little more money on the days he traveled. The money underscores Hayden’s effort to use public resources to build his profile.

The latest from Kansas City

In Kansas City …

Have a news tip? Send it along to ddesrochers@kcstar.com

Odds and ends

Under the bus

After a procedural vote to protect same-sex marriage under federal law passed the Senate on Wednesday, Eric Teetsel, the former chief of staff to Sen. Josh Hawley, took to Twitter to complain about the Republicans who supported the bill.

“These are the Senate Republicans who threw people of faith under the bus today,” Teetsel wrote, before listing the 12 Senators who voted for the bill, including retiring Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Teetsel, the son-in law of former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, used to be the head of the Family Policy Alliance in Kansas, a group that calls homosexuality a “false form of sexuality.”

But Wednesday’s vote may have shown that Teetsel’s line of argument — that marriage is between one man and one woman — is fading. While the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed the bill, it earned the support of the Mormon Church.

Even Teetsel’s former boss, like most Republican senators, avoided talking about whether he supported gay marriage and focused instead on religious liberty and the Obergefell decision.

“That ruling is the law and it’s not going to get overturned,” Hawley said at the Capitol Wednesday. “I don’t think. I mean, I can’t imagine. There’s no appetite for that. I’m not advocating that.”

The shift in public opinion has happened quickly, in less than a generation. In 2010, a majority of Americans opposed same-sex marriage, according to Gallup. Now, a decade later, 70 percent of Americans support it.

Schmitt’s first vote

Senator-elect Eric Schmitt’s first vote as a member of the U.S. Senate was against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who on Wednesday was elected to become the longest-serving leader in Senate history.

Schmitt had pledged during the election that he would vote against McConnell as leader, despite a PAC aligned with the Kentucky Republican pouring in millions that helped him win the primary and despite the fact that such a vote could alienate a powerful leader in the caucus before Schmitt’s even sworn in.

“I made a pledge to the voters of the state in both the primary and the general for change in leadership, and I honored that pledge today,” Schmitt said.

Only 10 Republicans voted for Sen. Rick Scott, from Florida, and another senator voted present. Because it was a secret ballot, it’s unclear which senator refused to vote for either McConnell or Scott.

But both Schmitt and Hawley were clear that they opposed McConnell, which means neither of Missouri’s senators chose to support the man who will lead their conference for the next two years. That will be a big change from the current status quo — Sen. Roy Blunt was one of McConnell’s biggest allies in the Senate. Blunt was often willing to take tough votes to secure deals to keep the government running.

Schmitt said he wasn’t concerned about the potential intraparty implications of his leadership vote.

“I’m gonna be the best Senator that I can,” Schmitt said.

Cleaver on Pelosi

For as long as Rep. Emanuel Cleaver has been in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been in charge of the Democratic Caucus.

That’ll change next year, when Pelosi will step down from her leadership role. In a speech on the House floor Thursday, Pelosi said she wanted to make way for the next generation of Democratic leaders as some in the audience dabbed tears in their eyes.

In the Speaker’s Lobby after the speech, Cleaver said he was saddened by Pelosi’s decision.

“Pelosi led us with light instead of heat,” said Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat first elected to the House in 2004. “But I think everybody knew that when necessary, she could turn on the heat. But it was like light.”

Cleaver said he’d support Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York for leader with Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Rep. Pete Aguilar of California rounding out the Democratic leadership team. He said he doesn’t expect challenges.

“We are the adult party,” Cleaver said. “We’re not going to have fights and all that stuff.”

Happy Friday

Naomi Biden, the president’s granddaughter, is getting married at the White House this weekend. Here’s an article about the history of White House nuptials. Have some mulled wine. Listen to Billboard’s number one song in 1987, the year outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was elected to Congress.

Enjoy your weekend.

Daniel Desrochers is the Star’s Washington, D.C. Correspondent
Daniel Desrochers is the Star’s Washington, D.C. Correspondent

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