Dozens of officials from ex-President George W. Bush’s administration say that the GOP’s fealty to former President Donald Trump, even after he incited the deadly Capitol siege, is driving them away from the party, according to Reuters.
Jimmy Gurulé, who served as the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told Reuters that “[t] Republican Party as I knew it no longer exists.”
“I’d call it the cult of Trump,” he said.
Kristopher Purcell, one of Bush’s White House communications officials, is also defecting from the GOP-and claimed that roughly 60 to 70 of his ex-colleagues are too.
“The number is growing every day,” he told Reuters.
It isn’t just Trump himself who’s apparently prompting the officials to jump ship, according to Purcell. It’s also far-right extremists Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who have both touted the debunked QAnon conspiracy theory.
Greene in particular has emerged as a deeply toxic agitator, having endorsed jaw-dropping calls to execute Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), while regurgitating racist and anti-Semitic remarks and claiming the Parkland high school shooting was a false flag operation.
Few Republicans have spoken out against the Georgia lawmaker.
