Former Virginia Rep. Denver Riggleman, elected as a Republican in 2018, said he’s endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris for president in a sharply worded attack on former President Donald Trump.
Riggleman, who was defeated in a convention nomination battle by conservative Republican Bob Good in 2020, is one of 16 former GOP members of Congress who, along with other Republican politicians, joined the new Republicans for Harris group to endorse the vice president in her campaign against Trump.
“I think that sanity matters. And I believe … sanity should be the baseline for anybody who chooses a president,” Riggleman said in an interview on MSNBC.
“I mean, look at what President Trump and the kind of people that he’s bringing to a future administration … it’s like a bag of rabid squirrels,” Riggleman said. “And I think that kind of insanity and the people that he surrounds himself with cannot be part of our future.”
Riggleman served on the staff of the special House committee investigating Trump supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Harris formally won the Democratic nomination last week in a virtual roll call of delegates to the party’s national convention. Harris replaced President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race on July 21 as concerns mounted about his age and his poor performance debating Trump.
Riggleman said Trump’s attacks on Harris since Biden’s withdrawal are “absolutely horrid,” adding that, with Trump, “You are looking at somebody I think that’s cognitively impaired, and I think somebody that’s having real mental issues.”
Jeff Ryer, a spokesman for the Trump campaign in Virginia, said Riggleman’s endorsement was no surprise given his past criticism of Trump.
In 2022, Riggleman endorsed Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger in her bid for reelection in the commonwealth’s 7th District.
During his six-minute interview on MSNBC over the weekend, Riggleman said Trump’s selection of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate “should be a real issue for most Americans based on his idea towards women.”
Vance’s change of heart from criticizing Trump in 2016 as an “idiot” and “reprehensible” to now running on the same ticket shows “he’s all about power. He’s all about access. It’s not really about the American public,” Riggleman said.
That’s the case with many Republican politicians, he said, adding, “what you’re seeing with a lot of politicians that are following Trump, it’s about power rather than the American citizenry. And that’s something, again, that’s bothered me a long time.”
Riggleman said he’s disturbed by Trump’s promise to pardon insurrectionists who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“It’s ludicrous when you talk about the amount of weapons use, what they’ve done, what the court system has found,” he said.
“Got to remember, I got to see a lot of the charging documents. … You’re talking about trying to overthrow our government based on trying to … ransack the Capitol,” he said.
The idea that then-Vice President Mike Pence could somehow block President Joe Biden’s election on that day was “just insane, and it’s conspiratorial. It really goes to a lack of intelligence, or he’s so cynical and he’s willing to spread that ignorance and metastasize it amongst the American public,” Riggleman said.
Others who joined Riggleman in the Republicans for Harris endorsement include politicians who also have already been critics of Trump, including former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. Former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel and Illinois Rep. Ray LaHood, who served in former President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, along with former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, also joined the group to endorse Harris.
Good, who defeated Riggleman in a drive-thru GOP primary convention in 2020, lost his primary battle in June to state Sen. John McGuire. In that contest, Trump’s endorsement of McGuire and attacks on Good for his earlier, short-lived endorsement of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid proved decisive.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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