Senate Democrat: ‘I just get sick’ thinking about GOP colleagues getting behind Trump

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he was disappointed in his Senate GOP colleagues for meeting with former President Trump on Thursday, calling Trump a “danger to American democracy.”

“I just get sick thinking about my Republican colleagues in the Senate, many of whom I consider to be friends, many of whom I know that support American democracy, watching them get behind this candidate that they know to be a danger to American democracy,” Murphy said in a CNN interview.

Trump met with House Republicans on Thursday morning, in what Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) described as a “pep rally,” and was meeting with Senate Republicans in the afternoon.

It marks the first time Trump has traveled to Capitol Hill since the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and also comes as GOP members rally behind the former president two weeks after his conviction on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial in New York.

For their part, Republicans in both chambers have started to plot an ambitious agenda if Trump is reelected in November and they control both the House and Senate starting next year.

Murphy maintained Thursday that Trump is “openly endorsing violence in our politics” and said the former president’s rhetoric makes him concerned about the future, including a scenario where President Biden wins election again but Trump supporters protest the results.

“I’m deeply worried about what happens if Joe Biden wins the election,” Murphy said.

Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) said the feeling in the House meeting Thursday morning was less of a policy discussion and more of encouraging members to “vote with the team,” adding there were multiple standing ovations for the former president.

Trump also emphasized the importance of the abortion rights issue for the 2024 election, multiple sources in the House meeting told The Hill. The former president said that exceptions to abortion bans are necessary, and that the issue is too important to ignore this fall.

His meeting with Senate Republicans on Thursday afternoon marks the first time he and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will be in the same room since late 2020, with the pair since having a tense relationship.

Both meetings featured Republicans considered to be on the shortlist to be Trump’s vice presidential pick, including Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), among others.