John Heilemann Slams GOP as ‘Zombie Party’ for Continuing to Back ‘Morally Depraved Monster’ Trump

MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilemann offered a pre-emptive eulogy for the modern GOP, saying it would turn into the equivalent of a dead party walking if it continued to back Donald Trump in the wake of his role fomenting the deadly Capitol insurrection.

Speaking with Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace on Presidents Day, the veteran journalist and author dissected the former president’s “continued vise-like grip” on his party.

“You know, it seems appropriate to have this conversation,” Heilemann said, teeing off on the 45th president. “I mean, you know, that guy — that guy, Nicole, retiree Donald Trump in south Florida, continues to be the most powerful person in the Republican Party and the party has sworn its allegiance to him in the face of — a guy who tried to kill them all or was perfectly willing to let them all die, like literally, you know? We talked about this last week. I mean, the kind of textbook definition of a monster, a morally depraved monster, who wanted to see — was happy to see his vice president killed.”

“They are so utterly without core, principles, ideology, intellectual ballast, convictions, beliefs, principles, positions. All they have now is Trump,” Heilemann said, continuing to rail against the former president. “I’m tempted to say, well, I’m not just tempted. I’ll say it. I think the Republican Party is dead now. I mean, I’ve said a couple times on the show that I think it’s a zombie party at this point, right? It continues to exist in the world and accumulate millions of people who vote for it. But it is without all of those things I just said.”

Indeed, there is strong evidence of a possible schism within the Republican Party, with just-released Gallup poll finding more conservative, pro-Trump MAGA fans leading a surge of interest in a third — possible “Patriot”? — political party.

” I think that’s right, and I think that story is told by Republicans,” Wallace replied. “I think that whatever compelled [Utah Senator] Mitt Romney to stand up and annihilate any notion that Donald Trump was other than dead to rights guilty, guilty, guilty.”

But when she called out Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for shirking his responsibility by voting to acquit Trump even after giving a blistering indictment of the former president in a Senate speech on Saturday. Heilemann, however, offered up a nuanced, more personally damning take on the Senate Minority Leader.

“He didn’t do that,” Heilemann said to Wallace. “All he did, Nicole, was he laid out the case as powerfully against Trump as anybody. He knows Trump’s guilty.”

“He said so,” Wallace agreed.

“[McConnell] just looked at his caucus and said, ‘If I vote to convict Donald Trump, I will no longer be leader of — the leader of the Republican Party,'” Heilemann said. “All Mitch McConnell cares about is power for himself and his party, so he looked at the caucus, saw that the caucus was going to be dramatically against him, was not a leader obviously, in any meaningful way, the absolute opposite of a leader. but he basically just did the math, the exercise and said, ‘If I vote to convict, they will throw me out. I won’t be Minority Leader anymore. I don’t want that. All I care about is me.'”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.