Republican National Committee (RNC) co-chair Lara Trump criticized comments from former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) regarding the felony conviction of her father-in-law, former President Donald Trump. Hogan’s comments came as most elected Republican officials backed the former president, who called the results “rigged.”
During an interview on CNN, Lara Trump said that she did not “support what he just said there.”
“I think it’s ridiculous. I think anybody who’s not speaking up in the face of really something that should never again have seen the light of day, a trial that would never have been brought against any other person aside from Donald Trump,” she said.
Resources spent on Larry Hogan in a longshot pursuit of GOP Senate seat 57 are a lot better spent securing Tim Sheehy and/or Bernie Moreno in GOP Senate seats 51/52.
— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) June 2, 2024
“He doesn’t deserve the respect of anyone in the Republican Party, at this point and quite frankly, anybody in America, if that’s the way you feel that’s very upsetting to hear that,” said Lara Trump.
When asked by the CNN host whether or not the RNC would “cede the Senate seat in Maryland to the Democratic Party and not support Larry Hogan,” the RNC co-chair said that “we of course want to win as a party, but that is a shame. I think he should have thought long and hard before he said that publicly.”
Lara Trump did not confirm or deny whether or not any resources from the RNC would go to support Hogan’s Senate bid.
“But what I can tell you is that as the Republican Party co-chair, I think he should never have said something like that. I think that’s ridiculous,” she said.
Her comments were echoed by Trump adviser and RNC official Chris LaCivita, who said that Hogan’s comments “ended” his campaign.
The former governor said that the decision of the New York jury should be respected. He was one of the few major figures in the Republican Party not to either back Trump or criticize the court case.
Hogan was one of the few prominent Republicans not to back Trump after the verdict was announced. Even prominent Trump critics such as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and former Vice President Mike Pence criticized the case’s outcome.