Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers testifies during the fourth congressional hearing on the January 6th investigation on June 21, 2022. The bipartisan committee, which has been gathering evidence for almost a year related to the January 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol, is presenting its findings in a series of televised hearings. On January 6, 2021, supporters of former President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol Building during an attempt to disrupt a congressional vote to confirm the electoral college win for President Joe Biden. Photo by Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images
After winning praise from liberals for telling Congress how former President Donald Trump tried to intimidate him into illegally overturning the 2020 election in Arizona, House Speaker Rusty Bowers earned their derision for saying that he’d still vote for Trump in 2024.
But now Bowers is backing down from that stance, telling the Deseret News in a new interview that isn’t sure what he would do if faced with Trump as the GOP nominee in 2024.
“I don’t want the choice of having to look at (Trump) again. And if it comes, I’ll be hard pressed,” he told the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints-owned news outlet. “I don’t know what I’ll do. But I’m not inclined to support him.”
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Bowers, a member of the LDS Church, went on to say that Trump bears no resemblance to the party that he has been a part of his entire adult life.
“He doesn’t represent the morals and the platform of my party. And I just see it more and more all the time. That guy is just — he’s his own party,” he said. “It’s a party of intimidation and I don’t like it.”
Last month, in advance of his testimony to the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Bowers told the Associated Press that Trump’s campaign repeatedly tried to get him to intervene in the election certification, which he said would be illegal and unconstitutional.
But, still, Bowers said he’d cast his ballot for Trump if the 2024 election was Trump versus Joe Biden.
Bowers told the Deseret News he feels the entire question is unfair.
“That’s a false choice. Why would we focus on that? And I’m not gonna let you box me (in),” he told the news outlet.
He explained that his answer to the Associated Press was his attempt to avoid angering Trump supporters who falsely maintain that the election was stolen.
“I don’t like to be boxed (in). And so, as kind of a sad evasion, I just said that. And it gets me out of a discussion and into a hotter fire,” Bowers said. “I feel like people are being pinned both ways. I will be supporting somebody in the primary other than Mr. Trump. But it will be a Republican.”
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