“Former presidents are kind of disappearing,” Arthur Brooks, the former president of the American Enterprise Institute, told Republicans against Trump over breakfast. “Not this guy,” spokesman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) Said, politely predicting the exact path Trump would take. “It will burn, the elections were stolen.” On Tuesday, after more than 35 years in Congress, Upton said he had reached the end of this ideological struggle for the soul of the Republican Party. Michigan GOP Upset as Trump Introduces 2020 Complaints in By-Elections At 68, Upton said Trump’s continuing anger at him did not push him to retire at the end of this year. Instead, the final decision Friday on the maps of the Michigan Congress left Upton with a small chunk of his geographical base, while MP Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) Retained a larger chunk of it in a new constituency that would put them together. in the GOP qualifiers. Trump approved of Huizenga before Upton left, and it appeared the two lawmakers could face off. Upton is the fourth of 10 House Republicans to support Trump’s announcement of his retirement and is by far the biggest name, given his stature as one of the most respected lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. What happened to the 10 Republicans in Parliament who voted for Trump’s ouster? Elected for the first time in 1986, Upton spent decades walking the gap in GOP politics. He served as a credible ally to far more conservative party leaders — he was a junior lieutenant in the House of Commons that pushed Newt Giddrich’s “revolution” into the first Republican majority after 40 years in 1994 – but retained several of his moderate credentials. conditions in a swing area that ran along Lake Michigan in the southwest corner of the state. He won the chairmanship of the House Energy Committee in late 2010 by setting up a Jenga game in front of senior Republicans, slowly pulling out each track to show his commitment to abolish Obamacare, until the set collapsed. However, he did it for Barack Obama at the end of his presidency with the huge 21st century cure bill. He forged a close relationship with then-Vice President Joe Biden while working on the bill, which included a “cancer” bill named after his late son, Bo Biden. And his friendship with the Dingel family remains as close a bipartisan link as it is in Congress. When spokesman John Dingell (D-Mich.) Lost his fight for the Energy Committee hammer in late 2008, Upton sought him out to comfort him. “Fred, do not cry for me,” Dingel told Upton later that day, according to Upton. A decade later, Upton served as a eulogist at the funeral of the longest-serving Member of Parliament and on Tuesday morning, after Upton gave an emotional speech announcing his departure, spokesman Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) Did not listen to his apology. her husband, who collapses with the first words she said. “He loves Parliament,” he said in a brief interview, explaining why Upton stayed about six years after the GOP’s term expired and forced him to leave the committee. In an uninterrupted interview with reporters just off the floor of Parliament, Upton explained that he believed he might have a chance to win the qualifiers against Huizenga. But he had to weigh himself if he deserved the pain and suffering. “It would have raised millions of dollars – I can do that. It would be many more millions that would have been spent by outside groups. They are always negative – do you want to get through it? “And, you know, the death threats,” Upton said, referring to how conservatives threatened to kill him because he broke up with Trump. “They are all factors.” As a slogan, Trump declared victory after Upton’s announcement with a capital letter “UPTON GOES!”. statement and noting that, of the six remaining GOP referral votes, some are facing tough battles. “Who’s next?” Trump asked. “So lame, absolutely predictable,” Upton told reporters, mocking the former president. “No imagination.” What Trump never realized was how politically valuable Upton was to him in the critical state of Michigan. In 2020, Upton won re-election by almost 16 points, while Trump won this constituency by just four points and narrowly lost Michigan to Biden. In 2016, when Trump stunned the world and won the state with less than 11,000 votes, Upton won his race by almost 23 points and helped Trump win the district by eight points. “If I had not carried him in ’16, he would not have beaten Michigan,” Upton said. Too many Republicans are hiding in fear of Trump, Upton said, making it “likely that he will be our candidate in ’24.” Few GOP lawmakers understand that they can win on their own if they just work hard enough, he said. “I proved it,” he said. “Obama won my district. [Hillary Clinton] won my district. I survived. “ His first call Tuesday morning to a fellow lawmaker was not to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California), who has done little to protect supporters of the GOP’s ouster from Trump’s wrath. Instead, at 7:20 a.m., he had called Debbie Dingel to tell her his plans. He watched the Final Four on Saturday night and ignored Trump’s visit to eastern Michigan. “I was told he was not mentioned,” Upton said. Representative Dianna DeGette (D-Colo.), A partner in the Cures Act, said his negotiating style required finding areas of mutual agreement – they focused on researching and discovering new technologies to fight disease, then transfer it to patients. – and then sets aside unresolved issues to avoid committing to wider negotiation. “Once we had that framework, we could just look at every issue and create a really big bill,” DeGette, whose family is close to Upton’s, said Tuesday. He is the most senior member of the Problem-Solving Problem, a bipartisan group of centrists who have repeatedly failed to find common ground on issues, even with these historically narrow margins for Democrats in Parliament and the Senate. But Upton counts a $ 900 billion coronavirus aid package in late 2020 as a victory for the team, as well as the $ 1 trillion infrastructure law signed by Biden last fall. His wife had a sweet answer when someone recently asked what the couple would do if Upton retired. “And they lived happily ever after,” he said in a statement. However, Upton could have an afterlife policy – he remains close to Biden, and if Republicans win a majority in the Senate, it will be difficult to win confirmation for new cabinet members or other senior members. This could offer an opening for the moderate Republican. “We will see what happens,” Upton said. “I have other chapters.”
