By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Sunday, January 2, 2022

Rep. Peter Meijer said Sunday that the Republican Party has “no other option” than to rally behind former President Donald Trump.
 
“There was no alternative. There was no other path,” said Mr. Meijer, Michigan Republican, on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
 
Mr. Meijer, one of 10 House Republicans who voted last year to impeach Mr. Trump over the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, said that President Biden’s far-left agenda has kept Republicans in the Trump camp.
 
During the 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden “said he would be moderate and look for bipartisan solutions,” said Mr. Meijer.
 
“But then after — and frankly, I blame the former president for this — after we lost the two Senate seats in Georgia and the Senate flipped, it became an exercise in trying to be an LBJ or FDR-style presidency and enact transformational change in the absence of any compelling mandate from the American people to do so,” he said.

He referred to the loss of two Republican-held Senate seats in Georgia in the run-off election, which split the Senate 50-50 and gave Democrats control with Vice President Kamala D. Harris as the tie-breaker.

Mr. Meijer said “that gave the rallying signal. That created a very steep divide, and at the end of the day, there’s no other option right now in the Republican Party.”
 
Mr. Trump has remained active in GOP politics since leaving office in January by, for example, endorsing primary candidates, including former Housing and Urban Development official John Gibbs, who is challenging Mr. Meijer for the GOP nomination.
 
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said last month on Fox News Sunday that Republican leaders in the House and the Senate “cannot be effective” unless they have a relationship with Mr. Trump.

• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.

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