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Donald Trump says he would consider unleashing Russia on America’s NATO allies. Then he compares his legal troubles caused by his own strongarm efforts to overturn an election, to Russian dissident hero Alexei Navalny, apparent victim of an assassination, who died fighting Vladamir Putin, the former KGB tough guy whom Trump wants to punish our allies. That prompts an obvious question for Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-2), once a member of the Democratic Party, who in 2019 said the Dems had moved too far to the left.
That question is this:
Will he switch parties again, from Republican, back to Democrat, now that the GOP has moved even farther to the left in its acquiescence to a presidential candidate comfortable with customizing a weaponized Russia against our friends?
Van Drew didn’t answer the question, posed to his office in an email by InsiderNJ.
That’s because Van Drew serves as the New Jersey state chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
He also avowed “undying support” to Trump.
So, if Trump plants the equivalent of a lip-lock on vicious Russian dictator Vladamir Putin, who imprisoned the late Mr. Navalny in a Siberian Penal Colony, Van Drew’s going to be there.
Civil rights attorney and retired detective Tim Alexander, a Democrat seeking the nomination in CD-2 so he can run against Van Drew in the 2024 general election, said Trump’s comments about NATO should cause “quite a bit of concern for our nation.”
As for Trump’s self-comparison to the late Mr. Navalny, Alexander queried, “What does the former
president mean when [he initially did not condemn his death] and we saw the death under – at best – suspicious circumstances and can conclude that Mr. Navalny’s death was orchestrated by the Russian government? The absolute silence of Mr. Van Drew on this issue when he has a national footprint, when such a person as Mr. Navalny was murdered, is telling. No matter what Donald Trump says or does, Mr. Van Drew is going to live up to his pledge of undying loyalty.”
Van Drew soundly defeated him in their 2022 matchup, but Alexander wants another crack at the incumbent, arguing that the congressman has put himself in an untenable position. “It’s extremely problematic to have a representative who expresses loyalty to Trump, and not to the people of the 2nd District,” said the challenger. “They are tethered at the hip. He wants people to envision Trump alongside him. Mr. Van Drew isn’t working for us he’s for Donald Trump. He’s 100% in that corner, and that’s not a representative we should want in the 2nd District. We have three of the poorest counties in the state of New Jersey. We need economic development yesterday. One example is the wind turbine industry. Instead of figuring out how we can make this work, Mr. Van Drew put these signs all over the district saying we’ve got to kill it.”
Alexander also noted House Republicans’ continuing inability to furnish a foreign aid bill that helps Ukraine, under siege from Vladamir Putin’s Russia.
“The White House has ramped up criticism of House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson in recent days over their failure to bring up a Senate-passed bill that would provide aid to Ukraine, where conditions have grown more dire, as well as Israel and Taiwan.
“White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt said in a statement Tuesday morning that “Speaker Johnson [who was in New Jersey yesterday] and House Republicans must act” on the foreign aid, noting that “time is of the essence.”
“House Republican leaders have fiercely criticized the foreign aid bill for failing to address the U.S.-Mexico border, despite a rejection of a bipartisan border agreement negotiated in the Senate earlier this month that they said didn’t go far enough. But passing the foreign aid bill without border provisions poses complications in the House, where additional aid for Ukraine is a nonstarter for some Republicans.”
Alexander decried the Johnson-led GOP caucus, which, like Van Drew, consistently demonstrates its handcuffed condition as a Trump-first collective.
“You bring the bill to the house and you work out your amendments to the bill,” said the Democratic challenger. “This is not a new method of negotiating bills, understanding that the bill is a bipartisan product. Let’s talk about oversight [of Ukraine funding]. Let’s see what we need to do to make sure safeguards are in there. I’m all for that, and I am all for securing the [southern] border.”
So is Van Drew.
So, what’s the problem?
Ah, that’s right, Trump said he didn’t want Congress passing the secure border bill because he doesn’t want incumbent President Joe Biden to take the credit.
“This is a case,” said Alexander, “of one person calling the shots and he has managed to put a strangle-hold on the Republican Party when the majority of America is in the middle. I think that the bottom line for us is we have to, at least starting here, remove one of these obstructionists.”
As for the political dividing line, invoked in the past as short-hand to describe a politician’s ideological stance, the citizens of CD-2 should know by now that when Van Drew – just like his House colleagues in the GOP – talks about moving to the right or to the left, what he means is he will move too, wherever an indicted, Russian-dictator-affirming former president squirms next.
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