Texas Sen. Ted Cruz could serve as “impeachment insurance” for Donald Trump in the event the two partnered in a bid for the White House, a House Republican said.
“I’ve got mixed emotions about him picking Ted for vice president,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner this week. “It might be fantastic insurance against impeachment for Trump.”
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Gohmert, who supported his fellow Texan’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination, called on Trump earlier this month to apologize to Cruz for comments made during the campaign, saying that Trump had accused the “most honorable guy in the race of all kinds of dishonesty.”
Nonetheless, Gohmert said, he understood why voters had chosen Trump. “He doesn’t always try to be the most gracious, and I think that’s what people like about him,” he said. “Our country is in grave danger, and Trump seems to recognize that.
“A lot of people that hate Trump also hate Ted, because he was constantly standing up in the Senate against the establishment,” Gohmert added. “The establishment would know that if they participated in the impeachment of a president Trump, they’d have Ted, and that would be even worse. So it might be good insurance to keep him from being kicked out as president. If you hate Trump, you’re really going to hate Ted.”
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While Gohmert said he could see the appeal of Trump’s personality, he hoped to see him make a greater commitment to supporting conservative policies. “In the earlier days of the campaign, I appreciated his political incorrectness, and his not being manipulated by the rules of political correctness. I think that’s why a lot of people were drawn to him,” Gohmert said. However, he added, “Some of us need to be sure that Trump’s newfound positions on things are positions he’s going to hold.”
The comments came before Wednesday, when Trump released a list of judges that he would consider naming as justices to the Supreme Court if he were elected. The list, which was drafted with guidance from the conservative Heritage Foundation and composed of constitutional legal theorists favored by Republican voters, was aimed largely at assuaging the sort of concerns Gohmert expressed.
