Eric Lee Peterson, of Kansas City, Missouri, pleaded guilty to knowingly and unlawfully entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In this Department of Justice photo, he is shown during the U.S. Capitol attack. (Photo from U.S. Department of Justice court filing)
WASHINGTON — A Kansas City, Missouri, man who pleaded guilty to entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and expects a pardon from President-elect Donald Trump will be allowed to attend Trump’s inauguration, a federal judge ordered Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over Trump’s election subversion case in the District of Columbia, granted Eric Lee Peterson’s request to attend the president-elect’s swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C., as well as a request to expand his local travel restrictions while on bond.
Peterson’s attorney Michael Bullotta argued in a motion filed Tuesday that his client deserved the exceptions because he does not have a criminal record and “(h)is offense was entering and remaining in the Capitol for about 8 minutes without proper authorization.”
“Apart from being reasonable on their face, these two modification requests are even more appropriate in light of the incoming Trump administration’s confirmations that President Trump will fully pardon those in Mr. Peterson’s position on his first day in office on January 20, 2025. Thus, his scheduled sentencing hearing before this Court on January 27, 2025 will likely be rendered moot,” Bullotta wrote.
Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to pardon the Jan. 6 defendants, whom he exalted as “patriots,” “warriors” and “hostages.”
The president-elect said during a Dec. 8 interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” that he’s “going to be acting very quickly” to pardon the defendants on day one — though he indicated he might make exceptions “if somebody was radical, crazy.”
During that interview, Trump also threatened imprisonment for former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and current Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who together oversaw the congressional committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack.
Peterson pleaded guilty to knowingly and unlawfully entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, for which he faces up to one year in prison, plus a fine.
As part of the plea, he agreed to pay $500 in restitution toward the estimated $2.8 million in damages to the Capitol, according to court filings. Peterson also agreed to hand over to authorities access to all of his social media communication on and around the date of the riot.
Approximately 1,572 people faced federal charges following the attack on the Capitol that stopped Congress for hours from certifying the 2020 presidential election victory for Joe Biden.
Lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence evacuated to secured locations within the Capitol as rioters assaulted roughly 140 police officers and vandalized several parts of the building, including lawmakers’ offices.
Peterson is among the 996 defendants who pleaded guilty to charges, according to the latest Department of Justice data.
Peterson appeared on both surveillance video from inside the Capitol and publicly available third-party video taken outside the building during the riot, according to a statement of offense signed by Peterson on Oct. 29.
Peterson, in a pink t-shirt over a dark hooded sweatshirt, stood among the crowd of rioters outside the locked Rotunda doors “as the building alarm audibly blared from within the Capitol building,” according to the statement.
Further, the court filing states Peterson entered the building at 3:03 p.m. Eastern and “walked right by a police officer posted at the doors.”
While inside the Rotunda, where several U.S. Capitol Police were present, Peterson took cell phone photos. He exited the building at 3:11 p.m., but remained on the Capitol’s restricted Upper West Terrace afterward, according to the statement.
Peterson was arrested in early August and originally faced a total of four charges that included disorderly conduct and parading, picketing and demonstrating inside the Capitol.
Donald Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump wants to jail former and current members of Congress who investigated his incitement of the violent Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and he plans to pardon the rioters immediately upon taking office, he told NBC News Sunday.
On the network’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” Trump said leaders of the special congressional panel that probed the Capitol riot “lied” and “should go to jail.”
Trump singled out committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and a senior Black member of Congress, and former high-ranking House Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who co-chaired the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” Trump told NBC host Welker.
Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump, walked back the president-elect’s comments Monday. Miller told CNN that Trump’s remarks about jailing Jan. 6 committee members were taken out of context and that he just wants his administration to “apply the law equally” to everybody.
President Joe Biden is reportedly mulling preemptive pardons for Cheney and former Democratic Congressman and incoming Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who also sat on the panel, along with others who could be targeted by the new Trump administration, according to media reports citing anonymous White House sources.
Trump takes office Jan. 20.
Cheney: ‘Here is the truth’
In a statement Sunday, Cheney described Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 as “the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history.”
“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” Cheney said. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten, and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.”
The Justice Department charged just over 1,560 people for taking part in the attack. Among those, 210 were found guilty at trial, and 979 pleaded guilty to charges that included assaulting police officers, trespassing and bringing deadly weapons to the Capitol, according to the most recent department data. That means it’s possible more than 1,000 individuals could be pardoned, depending on Trump’s decisions.
“As proven in Court, the weapons used and carried on Capitol grounds include firearms; OC spray; tasers; edged weapons, including a sword, axes, hatchets, and knives; and makeshift weapons, such as destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks, stolen riot shields, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping, and reinforced knuckle gloves,” according to the Justice Department.
Thompson said Monday the committee members “are simply not afraid of his most recent threats.”
“Our committee was fully authorized by the House, all rules were properly followed, and our work product stands on its own. In fact, in the two years since we have completed our work, no court or legal body has refuted it,” Thompson said in a statement provided Monday to States Newsroom.
“Donald Trump and his minions can make all the assertions they want – but no election, no conspiracy theory, no pardon, and no threat of vengeful prosecution can rewrite history or wipe away his responsibility for the deadly violence on that horrific day. We stood up to him before, and we will continue to do so,” said Thompson, who has served as the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security for the past two years.
Pardons on day one
Trump told Welker that he intends to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office. He said they violently attacked police officers because “they had no choice” and that their lives have been “destroyed” after facing charges for their actions.
During the wide-ranging interview Trump also blamed former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the attack and repeated debunked claims that “antifa” activists were part of a conspiracy to bait his supporters into attacking.
Video from Trump’s speech that day show him rallying his supporters to march to the Capitol and urge Congress to “do the right thing” by refusing to certify Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.
Trump also falsely told Welker that the Jan. 6 committee destroyed its investigative material and evidence.
In fact, hundreds of witness interview transcripts, videos and online exhibits are publicly available. The committee’s work culminated in a nearly 900-page final report that remains available online, and can be easily found with a simple internet search.
Kinzinger: ‘We did nothing wrong’
Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the only other Republican who sat on the Jan. 6 committee, said Sunday in a statement that Trump’s threat is “nothing more than the desperate howl of a man who knows history will regard him with shame.
“Let me be clear: we did nothing wrong. The January 6 Committee’s work was driven by facts, the Constitution, and the pursuit of accountability — principles that seem foreign to Trump,” Kinzinger, of Illinois, published on Substack.
Trump did not specifically name Kinzinger during his interview.
The White House did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on Biden’s reported consideration of preemptive pardons.
An employee adds a stack of mail-in ballots to a machine that automatically places the ballots in envelopes at Runbeck Election Services on Sept. 25, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. The company prints mail-in ballots for 30 states and Washington, D.C. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — With exactly two weeks until Election Day, millions of Americans have already cast their ballots via the mail or in person as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump pursue voters through the battleground states.
Early in-person absentee voting kicked off Tuesday in Wisconsin, adding to the list of swing states where voters have already begun casting ballots, the Wisconsin Examiner reported.
Georgia, another battleground, saw record early voter turnout in its first week, amassing more than 1.4 million ballots cast, more than a quarter of the entire voter turnout total in the 2020 presidential election, the Georgia Recorder reported.
Two national polls released Tuesday show Harris with an edge, particularly among young voters. Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted from Oct. 16 through Monday found Harris up by a narrow 3 points, hardly a change from Ipsos’ findings the previous week.
The latest quarterly CNBC/Generation Lab survey found Harris commanding a 20-point lead among 18-to-34-year-olds.
All eyes on Latino voters
The Harris campaign early Tuesday alerted the press to an “opportunity agenda for Latino men.”
The proposal promises to provide 1 million forgivable loans up to $20,000 for Latino men “and others” in start-up funding, eliminate college degree requirements on certain jobs, and encourage first-time home ownership among Latinos by building affordable homes and offer a $25,000 tax break for new buyers — two policy ideas for all Americans she’s been touting for months.
Poll numbers released Monday showed Harris continuing to outperform Trump among Latino voters in the battlegrounds of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
A group of Christian Latinos showered Trump with praise in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday. With hands on Trump’s shoulders, religious leaders prayed over him at a roundtable event held at the Trump National Doral Golf Club.
Guillermo Maldonado, who founded the King Jesus International Ministry, said the election is “not a war between the left and the right. This is a war between good and evil. We can fight that, and we need spiritual weapons.”
“Father, we anointed him today, we anointed him to be the 47th president of the United States to restore the Biblical values. No weapon formed against him shall prosper,” Maldonado, who goes by the title ‘apostle,’ continued in his prayer over Trump. The event streamed live on C-SPAN.
Immediately after the prayer, Trump’s signature campaign song, “YMCA” by the Village People, blared and the roundtable leaders began passing books and hats for him to sign.
During the roundtable, Trump accused Harris of “sleeping” and “taking a day off.” He also, again, accused her of having a “low I.Q.”
“There’s something wrong with her,” he told the crowd.
Liz Cheney, CNN and Springsteen
Harris campaigned Monday with former U.S. House Republican Liz Cheney in suburban areas of three states — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Cheney is the daughter of former GOP Vice President Dick Cheney, who is also backing Harris.
“For me, every single thing in my experience and in my background has played a part in my decision to endorse Vice President Harris,” said Liz Cheney, who was once the third-highest-ranking House Republican. “That begins with the fact that I’m a conservative and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the Constitution.”
According to her publicly available schedule, the vice president was scheduled to record two interviews Tuesday afternoon with NBC and Telemundo. And on Wednesday night at 9 Eastern, she’ll participate in a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania moderated by anchor Anderson Cooper.
Then on Thursday, Harris and former President Barack Obama will lead a “Get Out the Vote” rally, featuring a performance by Bruce Springsteen, in Georgia to encourage early voting.
On Friday the vice president will travel to Houston, Texas, to campaign on abortion rights. She will be accompanied by Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who’s trying to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Trump cancels appearances, plans Georgia rallies
Trump canceled a scheduled appearance Tuesday at an event titled “Make America Healthy Again,” which was to feature guests Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic lawmaker-turned-Republican Tulsi Gabbard.
Trump’s keynote speech set for Tuesday at a National Rifle Association event in Georgia was also canceled “due to scheduling conflicts.”
The former president also scrapped a planned early October interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” and recent scheduled appearances on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” and NBC News.
Trump is scheduled to host a rally Tuesday night in Greensboro, North Carolina, and on Wednesday his schedule shows two events — a “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hall” in Zebulon, Georgia, with the state’s Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, as well as a rally for Turning Point PAC and Turning Point Action in Duluth, Georgia.
Trump is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech Thursday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, for Turning Point’s “United for Change Rally.”
Politico reported Tuesday that the former president will record an interview Friday with popular podcast host Joe Rogan at his studio in Austin, Texas.
The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, on Tuesday announced a proposal on long-term care under Medicare focused on the “sandwich generation,” which refers to Americans who are caring for their children while also caring for aging parents. (Photo by Getty Images)
Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a plan Tuesday that would strengthen Medicare coverage to include long-term care for seniors in their homes, tackling one of the biggest challenges in U.S. health care.
The Democratic presidential nominee revealed the proposal while on “The View” — one of several high-profile media appearances this week as she and the GOP presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, sprint to the November finish line.
“There are so many people in our country who are right in the middle: They’re taking care of their kids and they’re taking care of their aging parents, and it’s just almost impossible to do it all, especially if they work,” Harris said during the live interview. “We’re finding that so many are then having to leave their job, which means losing a source of income, not to mention the emotional stress.”
Harris is focusing on the “sandwich generation,” which refers to Americans who are caring for their children while also caring for aging parents.
Under the plan, Medicare — the nation’s health insurance program for people 65 and older and some under 65 with certain disabilities or conditions — would cover an at-home health benefit for those enrolled in the program, as well as hearing and vision benefits, according to her campaign in a Tuesday fact sheet.
Medicare for the most part now does not cover long-term care services like home health aides.
The benefits would be funded by “expanding Medicare drug price negotiations, increasing the discounts drug manufacturers cover for certain brand-name drugs in Medicare, and addressing Medicare fraud,” per her campaign.
Harris also plans to “crack down on pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs) to increase transparency, disclose more information on costs, and regulate other practices that raise prices,” according to her campaign, which said she will also “implement international tax reform.”
The campaign did not cite a price tag but noted similar plans have been estimated to cost $40 billion annually, “before considering savings from avoiding hospitalizations and more expensive institutional care, or the additional revenues that would generate from more unpaid family caregivers going back to work if they need to.”
The proposal comes along with the nominee’s sweeping economic plan, part of which involves cutting taxes for more than 100 million Americans, including $6,000 in tax relief for new parents in the first year of their child’s life.
Trump responds
In response to the proposal, the Trump campaign said the former president “will always fight for America’s senior citizens — who have been left behind by Kamala Harris,” per a Tuesday news release.
The campaign also cited Medicare Advantage policies extended by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Trump’s first term.
The campaign reiterated the 2024 GOP platform’s chapter on protecting seniors, saying Trump will “prioritize home care benefits by shifting resources back to at-home senior care, overturning disincentives that lead to care worker shortages, and supporting unpaid family caregivers through tax credits and reduced red tape.”
Harris and Howard Stern
While appearing live on “The Howard Stern Show” on Tuesday shortly after “The View,” Harris dubbed Trump an “unserious man,” saying the consequences of him serving another term are “brutally serious.”
She also again criticized Trump for nominating three of the five members to the U.S. Supreme Court who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022 — a reversal that ended nearly half a century of the constitutional right to abortion.
“And it’s not about abortion, you have basically now a system that says you as an individual do not have the right to make a decision about your own body. The government has the right to make that decision for you,” she said.
Harris, who said she would appoint a Republican to her Cabinet if elected, was asked whether she would choose former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.
Cheney was the vice chair of the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee tasked with investigating the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Harris did not disclose a preference, but said Cheney is “smart,” “remarkable” and a “dedicated public servant.”
Meanwhile, Trump said Harris is “grossly incompetent” during an interview that aired Tuesday on “The Ben Shapiro Show.”
“Biden was incompetent, she is equally incompetent and in a certain way, she’s more incompetent,” Trump told Shapiro, a conservative political commentator and co-founder of The Daily Wire, referring to President Joe Biden.
Trump also criticized Harris’ Monday interview on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” saying the veep “answers questions like a child.”
“She’s answering questions in the most basic way and getting killed over it,” Trump added.
Look ahead for Harris, Trump campaigns
Harris was also set to also appear on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday night. She will also appear at a Univision town hall in Las Vegas, Nevada, that airs Thursday.
Trump was slated to participate in a roundtable with Latino leaders and a Univision town hall on Tuesday in Miami, but both events were postponed due to Hurricane Milton.
Trump is set to give remarks Wednesday in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Later that day, he will continue campaigning in the Keystone State with a rally in Reading.
A crowd of Harris-Walz supporters applauds at a campaign rally in Ripon Thursday, Oct., 3, where former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican, spoke in support of Harris. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
When Steve Michek voted for Donald Trump in 2016, the Republican sheriff from Iowa County was mainly focused on the fact that his party’s candidate for president that year came from the private sector.
“I learned enough through my experience as sheriff, you can’t run government like a business — it’s not the same,” said Michek, 64, who retired in 2023. “Nonetheless, I thought having some business-related experience certainly is not a bad idea.”
During Trump’s four years in office, however, Michek found the news from Washington increasingly disturbing. A revolving door of cabinet members hired and fired — “or he was belittling them in public,” Michek told the Wisconsin Examiner. “I was like, ‘What the hell? You don’t do that.’”
Then came Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 and early 2020, and his appointment of his daughter and son-in-law to “high-level jobs” in the White House. As sheriff, Michek said, “The people in the county wouldn’t permit me to do things like that.”
By 2020 “I’d had enough,” he said. Michek cast his ballot that November for former Vice President Joe Biden as the only other practical option. Then came the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who sought to prevent Biden from being certified as the winner of the election.
“I was appalled and even terrified,” Michek said. “I thought, what in God’s green earth are we doing?”
Michek had been a leader in the state sheriff’s association and visited Madison during the massive protests over Act 10, the legislation to end most union rights for state employees in 2011. He recalled those protests as primarily peaceful and “well-behaved.”
What he saw unfold on television from the U.S. Capitol was entirely different. “This was worse than anything I’d ever witnessed,” Michek said.
All of that explains why Michek was in Ripon Thursday to introduce former Republican U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney at a rally to showcase GOP support for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president.
“It is now clear to me that Donald Trump is a danger to our country. That is why I am voting for Vice President Kamala Harris,” Michek told the crowd at Ripon College. “As we gather in the very town where the Republican Party was founded, I am asking my fellow Republicans to join me as we turn the page on Trump’s campaign of division and chaos.”
‘Ronald Reagan conservative’ makes common cause with Democrats
The Harris campaign is emphasizing its outreach to Republicans in the 2024 election, including knocking on more than 200,000 doors in Wisconsin counties where Trump won four years ago. Trump carried Fond du Lac County, where Thursday’s rally was held, with 62% of the vote in 2020.
At the rally, a large sign declaring “Country Over Party” towered over one section of the audience, which greeted Cheney with cries of “Thank you, Liz!”
Cheney, whoendorsed Harris in September, harkened to the Republican Party’s founding in 1854 by opponents of slavery.
Underscoring her Republican credentials — “I was a Republican even before Donald Trump started spray tanning,” she quipped as the crowd laughed and cheered — Cheney called herself “a Ronald Reagan conservative.” She defined that ideology as a belief in limited government, low taxes, a “strong national defense” and the premise that “the private sector is the engine of growth of our economy.”
Although she had never voted for a Democrat before, Cheney said she would “proudly” vote for Harris in November.
“Vice President Harris is standing in the breach at a critical moment in our nation’s history. She’s working to unite reasonable people from all across the political spectrum,” said Cheney. Lauding Harris for a career in public service, she added, “I know that she will be a president for all Americans.”
She reiterated her call for Republicans to cross party lines in November. “We cannot turn away from this truth in this election — putting patriotism ahead of partisanship is not an aspiration,” Cheney said. “It is our duty.”
Vice President Kamala Harris applauds former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney at a rally in Ripon on Thursday, Oct. 3. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
Taking the podium and calling Cheney “a true patriot,” Harris thanked her “for your support and your leadership and your courage.” She also thanked Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney,who has said he will vote for Harris because of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“We both love our country and revere our democratic ideals, and our oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America is a sacred oath — an oath that must be honored and must never be violated,” Harris said. She framed the choice at the polls in November as an answer to the question, “Who will obey that oath?”
Harris reprised an appeal that she’s been making since the Democratic National Convention in August, when a series of Republican former office holders, including some former Trump aides, endorsed the Democratic ticket.
“No matter your political party, there is a place for you with us and in this campaign,” Harris said.
Over the last year, he said, when talk has turned to politics among friends and acquaintances he has been open about his opposition to reelecting Trump.
“I would say I’m not going to vote for a criminal — he’s a convicted felon,” Michek said.
When some people have pushed back, “I ask, ‘Would you vote me in for sheriff if I was a felon?’ They’ll say ‘Oh, hell no!’ So why would you for a president? I think it’s an easy argument this time around.”
Former Iowa County Sheriff Steve Michek, a Republican supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president, speaks ahead of former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney at a Harris rally in Ripon Thursday, Oct. 3. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
He said he hasn’t volunteered for the campaign or for the Democratic Party. He only learned about the rally and the open letter two days before the Thursday event when he got a request to speak.
“I didn’t hesitate — I was glad to,” Michek said.
The request came through a sheriff colleague who’s a Democrat. “He knew there were things I didn’t like about the Trump administration,” Michek said. When the request came, “To me it was like, ‘Wow, he was paying attention to the things I was saying.’”
Another signer was Mark Becker. A former Brown County Republican Party chair, Becker said he opposed Trump from the day the developer and reality TV star declared his candidacy and “just starting talking about migrants as, you know, terrible people,” Becker told the Wisconsin Examiner during a Zoom call Sunday morning.
After unsuccessfully urging Republicans “to do the right thing back in 2016” and reject Trump, Becker became part of a nascent never-Trump movement that former Milwaukee talk radio host Charlie Sykes helped to spearhead.
Trump “spent his time in office dividing us and creating chaos,” Becker said. “And then, of course, he capped it all off with Jan. 6, where he tried to overthrow and overturn a free and fair election and encouraged his supporters to violently storm the Capitol, resulting in 140 police officers being injured. It is clear that Donald Trump is a danger to our country, and this time there will be no guardrails.”
Former Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh. (Screenshot | Zoom)
Becker now hosts a weekly talk show on Civic Media radio stations in Wisconsin, where he aims for discussion that goes across partisan lines. His motto is, “I don’t advocate for left versus right, but we advocate for right versus wrong.”
Former Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, who was also on the Sunday call, turned against Trump in 2018 after “I made a mistake in 2016” and campaigned for him.
“Trump has reshaped the GOP into something extreme and dangerous,” Walsh said — “a party driven by conspiracy theories, authoritarianism and personal enrichment.”
Calling Jan. 6 “a defining moment for our nation,” Walsh said that in addition to failing to uphold a peaceful transfer of power after losing the 2020 election, “Donald Trump has pledged to do the same thing this year if he were to lose.”
Insurrection, insults and invective
The Capitol attack on Jan. 6 tops the list of anti-Trump Republicans’ reasons for opposing the former president.
“People lost their lives,” Michek said. “Not everyone’s been held accountable for that.”
He referred to former Gov. Scott Walker’s statement that people should “move on” from those events, although he didn’t mention Walker by name.
“I don’t think we should move on,” Michek said. “It’s similar to 9/11 — that’s something we should never forget.”
But criticisms of Trump don’t stop there.
Former state Sen. Barbara Lorman of Fort Atkinson was another GOP veteran to sign the letter supporting Harris. Like Becker, Lorman said she opposed Trump from the first time he ran in 2016 — turned off by his divisive rhetoric and what she saw as a lack of a moral compass.
“It’s about leadership,” Lorman told the Wisconsin Examiner in a telephone interview. “What kind of a leader do you want? Do you want a leader who admires despots? Who admires Putin? Who admires [Hungarian President] Viktor Orban? [That] should be a price to pay for any political party.”
Lorman, 92, served in the Wisconsin Senate from 1981 to 1995, an era when she served “with very nice Republicans” as well as with some legislators who “went to jail — both parties.”
She recalls her tenure there as a time when lawmakers were able to work across party lines.
“We need a strong two-party system,” Lorman said. “And we need people who can compromise — who can negotiate, who can work in a group, and who understand you can’t always have everything you want.”
Those are not qualities she sees in Donald Trump.
“To slam the other side, to say if they win, you’re going to die — I don’t want a leader who talks like that,” Lorman said.
She is baffled by Republican politicians who have thrown their support to Trump despite being targets for his scorn in the past — often because of their earlier criticism of Trump.
“His loose tongue has insulted so many people, and then when they get an opportunity they turn around and support him,” Lorman said.
But the Capitol attack was the worst offense in her eyes. “After Jan. 6, and after watching him on TV over and over, I just don’t understand why anyone would support him,” Lorman said.
Walsh told the Wisconsin Examiner that being a Republican for Biden in 2020 was “a much lonelier position than it is right now to be a Republican for Kamala Harris.”
The former Illinois congressman counts as many as 500 to 600 anti-Trump Republicans, including former members of Congress, former national security officials and veterans of past GOP administrations, all the way back to Reagan.
“This movement right now of Republicans for Harris is really something the country’s never seen,” Walsh said. In visits to all the battleground states in recent weeks, “I’m blown away by the local support of so many local Republicans in each of these states coming up to me when I’m in town with them, and saying, ‘Joe, I’m with her. I’m a Republican. I’m going to vote for her.’”
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