Trump is here to stay despite Capitol riots backlash, says Matt Gaetz: 'The most powerful Republican on Earth'
President Donald Trump will not be resigning or "leaving the public stage at all" despite backlash over the breach of the Capitol on January 6, according to Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Speaking to 'Fox Report Weekend' host Jon Scott on Sunday, the Republican firebrand said Trump remains the leader of Americans who believe the best is yet to come, who support law enforcement, and those who "need to stand together and fight against a radical left-wing agenda that it appears that Joe Biden intends to usher in with unified control over the government, with the House and the Senate."
"President Trump continues to be the most powerful, the most influential Republican on the planet Earth," Gaetz added. "It's my expectation that while he'll be leaving the White House in several days when his term is lawfully complete, he will continue to weigh in on matters that are important to the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him, who believe that this election process that we went through in 2020 still deserves more scrutiny and who expect that there will still be a constituency of people fighting for the America First agenda."
This comes as the Democrat-controlled House prepares to move forward with a resolution to impeach the president. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has referred to Trump as an "imminent threat" to the US Constitution and democracy. House lawmakers will work on Monday to pass legislation intended to force Vice President Mike Pence and the rest of the president's Cabinet to remove Trump from office by invoking the 25th Amendment. The House will convene for a full vote on Tuesday as the legislation will most certainly be blocked by Republicans.
"This impeachment would be unnecessary, it would be divisive, and it's only being done because Democrats want to keep the focus on President Trump," Gaetz said. "You would think that with just nine to 10 days left in the Trump presidency for this term, you would have Democrats eager to focus on what Joe Biden would be bringing to the country, his exciting picks for the cabinet, but you see they have to continue to hold together a very fragile coalition by maintaining the focus on President Trump."
Meanwhile, the congressman urged fellow Republicans to continue to fight for "election integrity," including outside Washington. This would entail "inspiring state Legislatures to have strong voter identification requirements," conducting probes into mail-in ballots, and not allowing election officials to "deviate from the instructions that state Legislatures set on the running of elections and the selection of electors."
That said, Gaetz is just one among several Republican leaders who are being called on to resign by Democrats in light of their efforts against the certification of the Electoral College vote for President-elect Joe Biden.
"I think that cancellation of members of Congress, whether it be calls for Hawley and Cruz and myself and Mo Brooks to resign, or calls for even worse, dovetail with what we see with Big Tech," Gaetz said. "No longer is it acceptable for the political left to participate in elections and try to participate in debate, they're trying to deplatform people who don't agree with them and to say that folks who maybe inspire a different political message are worthy of an expulsion for worse and I don't think that's going to do anything to animate the calls for unity that we've seen across the political spectrum."
Gaetz also gave his two cents on the Big Tech blackout of Trump from all their social platforms, arguing that the move showed how they wanted to "define the four corners of acceptable debate," thereby constraining thought and engagement.
"We cannot live in a world where the terms of service on Twitter are more important than the terms laid out by our founding fathers in the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights," the Florida Republican declared.
Nonetheless, Gaetz said he was joining hands with Rhode Island Democrat Rep. David Cicilline to have "far more aggressive enforcement of our antitrust laws" in order to "reset the relationship between consumers and the digital platforms that they use." He also revealed that Trump could use his presidential powers in his final days in office to "ensure that people are still able to speak out" about election integrity on social media.