Gosar tweets, then deletes, support for Trump's Constitution termination statement
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) tweeted and then deleted a post on Wednesday supporting former President Trump’s call for terminating the election rules in the Constitution.
“I support and agree with the former President. Unprecedented fraud requires unprecedented cure,” he said, accompanied by a screenshot of Trump’s post on Truth Social.
Trump has received pushback from a range of political leaders since his post on Saturday, in which he said a “massive fraud” from the 2020 presidential election allows for “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
Deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates denounced Trump’s post, saying that it should be “universally condemned.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with a South Carolina radio station on Monday that everyone who aspires to serve in public office should make clear that they will support and defend the Constitution. Multiple GOP lawmakers, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), also slammed Trump’s post, calling it “very inappropriate” and “ridiculous,” respectively.
Gosar, who has been a close ally of Trump and echoed his false claims about voter fraud costing him reelection in 2020, has previously expressed strong support for the Constitution and stressed his oath to defend it.
Gosar and other members of the House introduced a resolution in 2020 to express support for the recognition of Constitution Week in September in honor of when the Constitution was signed.
A spokesman for Gosar said in a statement that Gosar has a "decade of votes" to prove he is a strict constitutionalist.
The spokesman said no one in Congress has fought more for constitutional values than Gosar and pointed to Trump issuing a subsequent statement to clarify what he meant.
Trump insisted in two posts on Truth Social on Monday that he does not want to “terminate” the Constitution following the pushback he received. He said he only meant that "steps must be immediately taken to RIGHT THE WRONG" of the "irrefutably fraudulent" election.
"Those who claim either Trump or Congressman Gosar don’t believe in the Constitution are acting in bad faith or are low IQ people unable to comprehend our language and our actions," the Gosar spokesman said.
The spokesman declined to say why the tweet was deleted.
Trump's initial post about terminating the rules came after more detailed information was released about Twitter’s role in limiting the spread of a story about Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, on the platform.
Emily Brooks contributed.