Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is decrying a recent poll that finds almost one-third of Republicans believe former President Donald Trump will be “reinstated” as president this year.
During a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Schumer said, “I want my colleagues to be aware of the number 29%. That’s the percentage of Republicans who believe that President Trump will ‘be reinstated’ as president later this summer.”
“According to that recent poll by Morning Consult, nearly a third — nearly a third — of Republican voters believe Donald Trump will be reinstated,” he continued. “Of course, the idea of reinstatement comes from disgraced former President Trump himself, and is nothing more than the deluded ramblings of a defeated politician.”
He went on to say the poll is a “glaring warning” that Trump’s unfounded claims that the presidential election was stolen from him has “created fertile ground for all sorts of insane conspiracy.”
“It’s a depressing fact of our times that there’s an audience out there who will literally believe anything the former president says, no matter how unrealistic or untrue. They believe him when he just abjectly lies,” Schumer said.
Watch the video below:
.@SenSchumer: "The idea of reinstatement comes from disgraced former President Trump himself and is nothing more than the deluded ramblings of a defeated politician." https://t.co/6D0hVsqSqz pic.twitter.com/G29N9eUbJH
— The Hill (@thehill) June 10, 2021
The New York Congressman went on to say that “Washington Republicans and the political right” deserve blame for the number of Republicans who say they believe Trump will be reinstated for not speaking up about the former president’s election claims.
He noted that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blamed Trump for the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in January, but later came out in opposition to the creation of a commission to investigate the violence that day.
A Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 17% of Republicans say it is “very likely” Trump will be reinstated and 12% say it is “somewhat likely.” Meanwhile, 17% of Independents said it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely,” as IJR reported.
And, 7% of Democrats said it is “very likely.”
That poll comes amid reports that Trump has been telling people he will be “reinstated” as president by August.
There is no mechanism in the Constitution for a former president to be “reinstated.”