A2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, JUNE 12 , 2022
CORRECTION
l A p hoto caption with an article
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TALK SHOWS
Guests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows
9 a.m. FOX NEWS SUNDAY (WTTG)
Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.); Arkansas Gov. Asa
Hutchinson (R).
9 a.m. STATE OF THE UNION (CNN)
Reps. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) and Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.);
former congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.); former
treasury secretary Larry Summers.
9 a.m. THIS WEEK (ABC, WJLA)
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.); Connecticut Gov. Ned
Lamont (D); Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the
National Shooting Sports Foundation.
9 a.m. WHITE HOUSE CHRONICLE (PBS, WETA)
Daniel Brooks of the Electric Power Research Institute,
Peter Londa of Tantalus Systems, and Rod Kuckro of
Energy Policy News discuss this summer’s challenges for
the nation’s power grid.
10 a.m. THIS IS AMERICA & THE WORLD (PBS, WETA)
Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) discusses the crisis of opioid and
fentanyl addiction and the impact opioid addiction has had
on his own family.
10:30 a.m. MEET THE PRESS (NBC, WRC)
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.); filmmaker Nick Quested.
10:30 a.m. FACE THE NATION (CBS, WUSA)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.); Jill Peterson and James
Densley, co-founders of The Violence Project; Mohamed El-
Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz.
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AND MARIANNA SOTOMAYOROf the 10 House Republicans
who voted to impeach President
Donald Trump in January 2021,
Rep. Tom Rice seemed to be in the
deepest political peril.
The Myrtle Beach lawyer with a
country club demeanor and a
Southern drawl sailed into reelec-
tion four times with a conserva-
tive voting record, even winning
by 24 points in 2020. But his im-
peachment vote was roundly
jeered in his ruby-red district on
the South Carolina coast. His
Facebook was inundated with
thousands of vitriolic messages
and still is. Friendships frayed, he
said. Multiple challengers jumped
in the race against him, fueled by
Trump’s call for his ouster. His
doom was widely predicted.
But Rice has a fighting chance
to keep his seat, or at least make it
to a runoff against a Trump-
backed challenger, according to
South Carolina political observers
and people who have watched the
race closely.
As he tr averses country music
fe stivals and barbecues in the fi-
nal days of the heated Republican
primary here, Rice, 64, is making a
different bet: that being against
Trump in the future is the way to
go, even in a district Trump won
by almost 20 points in the 2020
election and in a s tate where his
approval is still sky high amon g
Republicans, according to public
polls.
The primary is Tuesday.
In a r ecent intervie w, Rice exco-
riated the former president and
said he was a “diminished” figure
who lost the election and did not
need to lead the Republican Party,
ticking off a series of others who
could instead.
“I absolutely believe that we’ve
got to get back to our principles of
defending the Constitution — not
just loyalty to one very divisive
man, because that is a horribly
destru ctive path for the Republi-
can Party to head down,” he said.
“It’s one of the reasons I w ant to
fight as hard as I’m fighting, to
prove that we’re not just about
loyalty to a would-be tyrant.”
The 10 House Republicans who
voted for impeachment — w ho
keep in touch via group text, ac-
cording to Rice — have faced wild-
ly different outcomes since
Trump’s wrath made them pari-
ahs in their own party. Some are
not running for reelection after
facing difficult GOP primaries.
Several others are fighting uphill
battles. Two of them, Reps. Adam
Kinzinger (Ill.) and Liz Cheney
(Wyo.), have turned into constant
Trump critics, while others, such
as Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler
(Wash.), have tried to moderate
their criticisms as they attempt to
stay in of fice against primary chal-
lengers.
The group has dined with for-
mer American Enterprise Insti-
tute president Arthur Brooks
twice, Rice said, and “we comment
on the news of the day, we encou r-
age each other, we talk. ... We’ve all
become friends.” He declined to
get into details about the conver-
sations but said the group had
talked about Trump’s attacks on
them and how to overcome them.
Some declined interviews be-
cause they said they didn’t want to
make their campaigns about be-
ing against Trump, who has en-
dorsed a challenger in each of
their races. An aide to one, speak-ing on the condition of anonymity
to avoid angering Trump, said,
“There is no bene fit whatsoever to
talking about Trump.”
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio)
decided not to run for reelection
last year, citing the “toxic dynam-
ics” that exist within the GOP
toward those who do not toe the
party line.
Gonzalez said he was “not real-
ly thinking” about elections when
asked about the nine other pro-
impeachment Republicans who
are facing tough primaries. But he
did acknowledge that their vote
has bonded the group.
“It’s been fun to get to know
peop le th at otherwise I didn’t
know,” he said. “To become closeand tightknit with all of them has
been really rewarding and some-
thing that I frankly treasure.”
In a r ecent interview, Trump
said he took particular pride in his
efforts to beat the 10 members,
and advisers said it was his high-
est priority in 2022. “You had peo-
ple drop out of races that they had
no intention of dropping out of,
and the other ones are losing, like
Rice in South Carolina,” he said.
Taylor Budowich, a Trump
spokesman, said in a statement
that the former president “pays
careful attention to every race and
endorses candidates who will be
champions for his America First
agenda, especially in races where
weak, dishonest RINOs have
abandoned their constituents and
instead embraced the Woke Mob.”
There has been no reliable pub-
lic polling of the race, but Rice
allies believe the Trump-backed
challenger, Russell Fry, is their
strongest opponent and hope to
keep him under 50 percent to
force a runoff. A W inthrop Univer-
sity poll earlier this year showed
Trump has an 89 percent approval
rating among Republicans in the
state.
One reason Trump’s endorse-
ment has not necessarily halted
Rice, according to some South
Carolina political observers, is
that he only held one rally in the
state, which attracted a few thou-
sand people, and one tele-rally but
has not spent any money in the
state.
Trump is also campaigning
against Rep. Nancy Mace, another
South Carolina Republican he hasendorsed against — even though
she did not vote for impeachment.
Nikki Haley, the former South
Carolina governor and U.N. am-
bassador under Trump, has cam-
paigned for Mace, angering
Trump.
“If the Trump organization was
willing to spend as much money
as they are political capital, they
may have won a lot more races,”
said Tim Pearson, a longtime
South Carolina operative who was
a top Haley adviser.
In Rice’s deeply religious dis-
trict, pro-Trump flags and signs
dot Highway 501, and evangelical
voters helped propel Trump to a
wide victory. It has seen a popula-
tion boom in recent years fueled
by a promise of lower property
taxes and proximity to the beach.
Many of the retirees have come
from the north, residents say, with
subdivisions sprouting all over ru-
ral towns like Aynor and Conway.
The local Republican Party has
changed, according to Rice and
South Carolina political consul-
tants. Some leaders in the local
party have agreed with Trump’s
false claims that the election was
stolen, and the party has deliber-
ately le ft Rice out of at least one
prominent event. In Horry Coun-
ty, the local Republican Party’s
website touts a recent speech from
former Trump national security
adviser Michael Flynn and an A R-
15 that Flynn signed for a raffle.
“The local county party was
having meetings where some
were telling people not to get vac-
cinated,” Rice said, adding that he
opposed that advice.
Rice had always been popular
— never facing much of a Republi-
can challenge, campaigning for
Trump and touting his conserva-
tive record — until now. He has
lived in South Carolina his whole
life and runs a law firm that has
his name attached.
He vigorously campaigned for
Trump throughout the 2020 presi-
dential election season and de-
fended some of Trump’s most con-
troversial moves in office. He rare-
ly voted against the Republican
Party and did not vote to certify
the election, even after the Capitol
was ransacked — a vote he says he
regrets.
In a r ecent interview, Rice said
he didn’t regret supporting
Trump either time, called his pres-
idency “consequential,” and said
the country would be be tter off
had Trump won over Joe Biden.
“I thought he hit the wrong
button,” Walter Whetsell, Rice’s
campaign consultant, said of his
impeachment vote. Rice said
many people called him to make
sure h e’d voted correctly that day
on the floor, but he voted and
immediately left Washington, ex-
pecting some opprobrium.
Rice said the vote was obvious
to him after he studied what
Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021 — at-
tacking and not calling Vice Presi-dent Mike Pence, not calling other
officials and not doing anything to
show remorse.
“When you throw a temper tan-
trum after the election that culmi-
nates with a lie and the sacking of
the Capitol of the United States,
and you sit there and watch the
Capitol get ransacked and the
Capitol Police get beaten for three
hours, and you don’t lift a finger to
stop it, it ’s indefensible,” he said.
“To sic that crowd on Mike Pence
and his wife and his daughter is
just an unhinged direct attack on
our Constitution.”
Rice said that the impeachment
vote made his race undoubtedly
much harder, but that he would
not change it. In the beginning,
Rice said, he was frequently con-
fronted in the district for his vote,
but he also received considerable
support after explaining it at town
halls. The comments on his social
media pages suggest that, at least
among Republican activists, he
remains deeply unpopular. Hun-
dreds still attack him weekly for
his vote, and local activists have
rallied support against him.
Since then, Rice said, more
“random people” send him contri-
bution s, but support from the offi-
cial GOP has all but dried up —
and others have come into the
district to campaign against him.
House Minority Leader Kevin Mc-
Carthy (R-Calif.), he said, has not
helped him even though he is an
incumbent.
“They are very afraid of and
deferential to the president. They
feel like if they alienate him, then
their prospects are diminished,”
he said.
Rice said th at he has defended
his im peachment decision repeat-
edly to his constituents, but that
most now ask him about inflation,
gas prices, President Biden or Af-
ghanistan. While the impeach-
ment vote once came up repeated-
ly, “now maybe I get asked about it
once at every event,” he said.
In a r ecent debate, Fry and the
other challengers repeatedly evis-
cerated Rice for his impeachment
vote, leaving him alone on the
stage to defend himself.
Rice said Fry, his main oppo-
nent, had made his entire cam-
paign about a “litmus test” on
Trump and impeachment, while
he wanted to talk about projects
he’d gotten funded in his district
and other national issues.
“He doesn’t know who Russell
Fry is,” Rice said of Trump. “It’s
just desperate revenge and spite.”
“When’s the last time you had a
president, any president in your
lifetime, come and play in a pri-
mary election for revenge? I c an’t
name a single time in my life,” he
continued. “He’s absolutely been
diminished. There is no doubt he
has. There is no path for him to be
president again in terms of win-
ning an election. He wants atten-
tion, and he’s afraid he’s going to
lose it.”Rice tries to survive vote to impeach Trump
MADELINE GRAY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) t alks with constituents during a community coffee event in Loris, S.C., in June2021. Former president Donald Trump has endorsed his main opponent in Tuesday’s primary.
Republican congressman
from S.C. faces a strong
primary challenge“When’s the last time
you had a president,
any president in your
lifetime, come and play
in a primary election
for revenge?”
Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.)6-MONTH CD
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