Justin Amash has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, which he recently left to become an independent. During his time with the Grand Old Party (GOP), Amash was the first to support impeaching Trump publicly, and — per The Inquisitr — he recently criticized Trump’s attacks on congresswomen of color as “racist and disgusting.”
But Amash’s break with the GOP has been a long time in the making. In a book by Tim Alberta called American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump , Alberta reveals interviews with Amash that were conducted a year ago that shine light on his break with the party.
During the interviews, Amash claims that his former Republican allies are “lying through their teeth” to protect the president, who he claims has the “superpower” of shamelessly lying to the American people. The libertarian-leaning representative also believes that Republicans are approaching politics in a harmful way that encourages bipartisanism.
“They believe in a cosmic battle between the right and the left, good and evil, and they think any criticism of Trump is helping the other side.”
Amash claims that in the process of doing whatever they can to please Trump, Republicans are “hurting themselves and they’re hurting the country.” He claims they believe that “they need to stand by Trump” to keep their jobs.
In a new book by @TimAlberta , Rep. @justinamash accuses his former congressional allies of “lying through their teeth” to protect the president. https://t.co/tSv2JjJy0C
— reason (@reason) July 17, 2019
The 39-year-old congressman has been attacked by Trump and members of the GOP, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who accused Amash of voting more with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi than with him — although this is untrue.
Per The Inquisitr , Amash has criticized Pelosi’s approach to her job and how it feeds into hyper-partisan politics.
“If there’s one thing Speaker Pelosi wants more than anything, it’s to stay in power,” he said during an interview with Vox . “You can see what she’s doing, for example, with impeachment. I don’t think it’s a sound strategy, unless she only cares about staying in power and not doing what’s right.”
During the same interview, Amash suggested that most people in Congress are avoiding natural debate and simply voting based on what the party wants. He claims that most of his colleagues in Congress aren’t working to change this system and are feeding into it and the process of casting predetermined votes based on party wars. But Amash believes that most Americans want their congresspeople to debate issues and treat Congress as a deliberative system to ensure honest and thoughtful representation.