MSNBC host Joy Reid likened President Trump to Saddam Hussein and wondered aloud if it was possible for a “de-Baathification” of the Republican Party.
“I wonder if Liz Cheney, her statement being the thing that Republicans used — I mean, the Democrats used, sorry — to explain why they needed to impeach Donald Trump, is there a little wing of the Republican Party that you think can do this sort of de-Baathification of the party?” Reid asked during a discussion with colleague Nicolle Wallace earlier this week. “And can it work at this point?”
The “de-Baathification” process refers to an effort by the Iraqi government in 2003 to purge the influence of the Baath Party, of which former dictator Saddam Hussein was once a leader, from the newly forming government.
Wallace responded by saying that Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who broke with the majority of the GOP and voted to impeach Trump earlier this week, would have a hard time getting rid of the “rot” of Trump.
“I think the challenge is that the rot is from the grassroots all the way to the presidency,” Wallace said. “So the rot is at every layer. You can call it rot because it’s now criminal sedition. But there are people that supported it from the grassroots all the way up through to the White House.”
