Why are Republicans declining to call for Sen. Robert Menendez to resign? The charges against him are pretty serious, after all. Aaron Blake explains:
Because Republicans believe standing by Trump is politically necessary, because they really wanted Roy Moore to hold a key Senate seat, and because they need the vote of Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) in a tightly divided House, they are going to hold off as long as possible in passing judgment on these or any similar allegations, regardless of whether they have resulted in indictments.
If Menendez is unfit for public office, then so are Trump and Santos—and that's unacceptable. Better to stick to their guns about how the FBI is corrupt itself and can't be trusted to investigate political figures.
In fairness, it's worth pointing out that Republicans get no benefit from calling for Menendez to resign, just as Democrats are taking no risks by demanding that he go. If Menendez does leave office, New Jersey's governor will replace him with a Democrat, and a Democrat will almost certainly win the seat permanently next year. The balance of the Senate will be unchanged no matter what happens.
I don't get why "Democrats are taking no risks by demanding that he go ..." They didn't demand his resignation in 2015, and they have the cover of the GOP not pushing for Trump, Santos, and others to resign.
Democrats got out in front of this quickly, and on Friday most of the Dem leadership in NJ had called for Menendez to resign or at least not run for reelection. It took until Tuesday or Wednesday for the national Dems to get on board, BECAUSE there was political risk to doing so. The only ones who did early were safe or "crazy" Dems until Cory Booker did, and then the floodgates opened.
But there is no equivalence between the GOP standing by their own and the Democrats demanding a seemingly corrupt Dem resign.
In 2015, Chris Christie (R) was Governor.
there's no risk because the evidence is so damning and a dem will appoint his replacement. with the strength of the case failing to call for his resignation is the political risk. my assumption on why it took a while for national dems to get on board was simply to realize that, while NJ pols already knew how corrupt he was. but none of this implies equivalence between dems and the gop.
"there's no risk because the evidence is so damning and a dem will appoint his replacement. "
I think the actual risk is that he will not resign, and spend the next year "putting sticks in the wheels" of Democrats. It is kind of a game of chicken, because he doesn't gain anything from doing it, but can try to blackmail Democrats anyway.
With the way the Supreme Court has been ruling, to be convicted of corruption would literally require a smoking gun--then they'll get off on 2nd amendment grounds....
Amen.
Funnily (or not), when the big news was out about the Defendant attempting to buy a pistol, I assumed he was planning to make good on his campaign promise to shoot somebody on 5th Avenue.
Are you saying that Republicans can't call for Menendez to resign because doing so would make them look hypocritical? Please. They don't care about hypocrisy. Their followers will accept any position without question, consistent or not.
You'll need to look deeper to explain what's going on here. Perhaps they'd rather run against Menendez than against an honest and competent Democrat, regardless of the odds they've been assigned by pollsters. It's one reason the Republicans have been successful in recent decades: unlike Democrats they keep giving it their best regardless of the odds assigned to them.
Like!!
yeah, the reason they're not attacking menendez is they don't see advantage in it. the bigger the story the more it makes the FBI and Justice dept look nonpartisan and fair under biden, among other things.
Republicans badly need Menendez to fight so they can play the whataboutism card. They want him to stay right where he is to stretch out his usefulness. If Menendez steps down he'll be stepping out of the spotlight, and he'll look marginally superior to Santos and Trump by doing it. We won't see any Rs on that bandwagon; they can't use any of that.
Also an excellent point.
Well then, the Republican messaging machine needs to gin up reasons why Gold Bar Bob is the Biggest Traitor in American History. Then, when it's clear he's WAY WORSE THAN TRUMP!!1 it'll be safe to go after him.
I live in NJ. Though I don't pretend to be an expert on local politics, I do think Kevin overstates the lack of risk in NJ electing a Democrat to the Senate in 2024. Yeah, all things being equal, a generic Democrat would be the favorite against a generic Republican, and especially over a MAGA Republican. But like Massachusetts, NJ is a generally Democratic state (at least for the the last few decades) that remains open to electing "moderate" Republicans. Chris Christie is not that long ago. I'd guess that the 2024 Republican candidate for Senate would be a transparently fake "moderate" who is basically a closeted MAGA (think Glenn Youngkin) who would hit the Menendez/Democratic corruption angle hard. Sure, there are huge unknowns (including the candidates) in an election thirteen months out, but I think such a candidate would have a reasonable shot. On the plus side, Drumpf should be a drag on any Republican candidate in NJ.
as another NJ resident but non-politics expert, i think voters in NJ see the governor differently from congressional representative, like reliably ble maryland who also has a republican gov. the last time NJ had a republican senator was the 1970s. in the era of trumpism and gop extremism in general, i'm pretty confident no republican has a chance.
I actually voted for Senator Clifford Case in the '70s; he was the type of liberal-ish Republican that hasn't existed since the last century. (That was one of only two Republican votes that I've cast in fifty-one years of voting. The last was in 1984 for the genuinely liberal Republican incumbent in Manhattan's old Silk Stocking district over Andrew Stein who, like almost everyone, I despised with a passion. Stein lost.)
Without bad faith….
Republicans would have no arguments at all
I believe the main reason Republicans are supporting Menendez is they realize he is a political problem for Democrats and Joe Biden, and they would very much like that political problem to linger as long as possible.
The "can't afford to" angle strikes me as being far-fetched. I doubt Republicans in the main are the least bit nervous about charges of hypocrisy based on the considerable problems on their side of the aisle. They're Republicans.
"If Menendez is unfit for public office, then so are Trump and Santos"
That's inductive reasoning far, far too subtle for Republican voters to grasp.