The House GOP’s Trump trap

With Democrats preparing to try to put Trump effectively back on the ballot in next year’s midterms, we can expect to hear a lot more House Republicans being pressed to explain whether their votes on Jan. 6 amounted to an attempted overturning of Biden’s 2020 victory. McCarthy is hardly the only one getting pushed for clarification. Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who’s seeking an open Senate seat next year, voted against certifying both the Arizona and Pennsylvania results. He wrote later in January that “this was never about overturning the election result, it was about forcing a discussion that millions of Americans wanted us to have.” He told The Associated Press last month that Biden “won the vote on Jan. 6, and I think he is the legitimate president.” GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin, who’s running for governor in his home state of New York, offered a sharper rejoinder when our colleagues at Playbook tried to pin him down as to whether Biden’s victory was legitimate. Zeldin also voted against certification in Arizona and Pennsylvania. Ultimately, Zeldin concurred with the verb “won” to describe Biden’s victory.