After impeachment split, fight for soul of GOP begins in House

WASHINGTON — The front lines in the war over the future of the Republican Party are now set squarely inside the House of Representatives following Wednesday’s impeachment vote, which saw a small but significant GOP faction renounce President Donald Trump and endorse a path forward without him.

With less than a week before Trump leaves office, the initial skirmish is already underway, with a group of presidential loyalists pushing to force out the most senior Republican who backed Trump’s impeachment — Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 party leader in the House.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., moved Thursday to forestall a messy internal fight, making clear he did not support calls for Cheney’s ouster as Republican conference chairwoman. But it remained uncertain whether that would be enough to quell anger at Cheney’s dramatic break with Trump.

The reckoning inside the House GOP signals the start of what is expected to be a bruising battle about Trump’s standing in the party during the next four years. Since Trump seized the GOP nomination in 2016, he has dominated the party and remade it in his own brawling, populist image. But many Republicans have long been uncomfortable with Trump’s nationalist politics and abrasive style, and that discomfort turned to disgust last week when the president inspired his loyalists to assault the Capitol.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in three weeks, much less three years, but there is deep soul-searching about who we are as Republicans,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who voted to reject both the electoral challenges and Trump’s impeachment.

McHenry, a nine-term lawmaker deeply shaken by the Jan. 6 riot, said it remained to be seen who will carry the mantle of leadership within the party, but he acknowledged Trump’s standing has diminished.

“The day after the election, that question of leadership was unquestionably in one person’s hands, and each week that has gone past, he has limited himself, sadly, based on his own actions,” he said.

In the House GOP ranks, many are wrestling with internal questions about the party’s role in embracing Trump’s claims of a stolen election as well as the direct actions a handful of Republican members may have taken to encourage the violent riot of Jan. 6, which saw an armed mob storm the Capitol, resulting in five deaths.

Even after the riot was quelled, roughly threequarters of House Republicans voted to reject some state-certified electoral votes, embracing voter fraud theories that have been promoted by Trump but roundly rejected by courts, election officials of both parties and factcheckers.

The GOP upheaval inside the House is certain to be more pitched than in the Senate, where members are more insulated from political crosswinds by their six-year terms and the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who delivered a stinging denunciation of Trump’s election attacks just moments before the mob breached the Capitol. The Senate is expected to begin a trial later this month that could result in Trump being barred from holding future office.

McConnell and several other GOP senators have signaled they are open to convicting Trump and potentially barring him from returning to the presidency.

While only 10 of 211 House Republicans voted to impeach Trump, many who were quizzed Wednesday about the reasoning behind those no votes pointed to concerns about national comity or a rushed process rather than defend Trump’s actions.

McCarthy himself went to the House floor and faulted Trump for not acting immediately to stop the violence on Jan. 6, publicly endorsing a censure resolution against Trump — what might have been, in other circumstances, a stunning breach between two leaders that once appeared to share an unbreakable bond.