‘I’m not afraid of clowns’: Republican defends vote to impeach Trump

Tom Rice told the New York Times of Trump and January 6: ‘I think he had a duty to try to stop it, and he failed in that duty.’ Photograph: Meg Kinnard/AP

One of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump over the deadly Capitol attack insisted the former president should be consigned to the political past, even as Trump attracted headlines with a Senate race endorsement, in his continued attempt to control the GOP.

“Bring on the circus,” Tom Rice of South Carolina told the New York Times. “You know, some people are afraid of clowns. I’m not afraid of clowns.