Ex-GOP Rep on Amash Leaving the Party: The Republican Party Has ‘Failed Morally’

Former Republican congressman David Jolly left the GOP months ago, and so this morning on MSNBC he said he understands Justin Amash making the decision, even if their reasons were not 100% the same.

Amash, who publicly backed impeachment proceedings into President Donald Trump, announced this week he’s leaving the Republican party, saying, “The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions.”

Jolly said on MSNBC’s Up with David Gura this morning that Amash should wear Trump’s criticism as “a badge of honor,” saying that Amash wasn’t so much rejecting Trumpism as rejecting “the Republican party’s embrace of this president.”

“In today’s Republican Party,” Jolly said, “we have a party that’s failed morally, failed to protect the Constitution.”

Jolly wrote when he left the GOP that you can’t be never-Trump and be a Republican, saying at the time the battle for the GOP has been lost.

“Now we face a political crisis in the rise of Donald Trump and it is fair to judge how the Republican Party has embraced him and celebrated him,” he continued. “The reason I left the party is I cannot point to a single leader in today’s Republican Party and think that one day I would associate with them or trust their leadership or decision-making. I think the Republican Party has been lost for a generation. I cannot see returning to a coalition of Republican voters that would include today’s Republican leaders and be able to explain that to the daughter that caused me to reflect on this.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.