In the News
CNN | South Carolina Republican Tom Rice faces down impeachment backlash in pro-Trump US House district
Feb 16 2021
At first, his colleagues thought he made a mistake. Rep. Tom Rice, a South Carolina Republican, voted to impeach former President Donald Trump on January 13, a week after objecting to his defeat, the only member of Congress to do so.
Before he walked out of the Capitol, his phone rang, according to Rice. On the other line was House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who didn't think he actually intended to impeach the then-President.
"I said, 'I pressed the right button,'" Rice recounted.
But Trump supporters back home don't think he did. Rice now may be one of the few members of Congress to face a political price for that vote. In the following weeks, several Republicans have either launched campaigns or threatened to run against the five-term congressman, knowing that 59% of the Myrtle Beach-based district supported the former President over Joe Biden.
"There's a firestorm," said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chairman and Rice ally. "South Carolina is big for Donald Trump."
But Rice has no regrets. He spent the days preceding the vote "pulling everything I could find" about what Trump did, and whether it would fit the alleged charge, "incitement of insurrection."
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