Right-wing activists who falsely insist that President Donald Trump won reelection held a press conference Tuesday to talk about their path forward after Electoral College votes cast in every state Monday formally affirmed Joe Biden’s presidential win. The activists threatened to unseat congressional Republicans who do not go along with their demands to object to certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
“Stop the Steal” organizers Ali Alexander and Ed Martin were joined by Arizona state Sen. Anthony Kern, political strategist Alexander Bruesewitz (who is also working with the Stop the Steal campaign), and two Republican electors from Michigan who unsuccessfully attempted to crash the official count at their state capitol on Monday.
“Trump did win this election,” said Kern, claiming that it is being “stolen from the American people.” He said that if Republican members of Congress do their jobs, Trump will serve for another four years.
“We are being gaslit,” Alexander said. “This is a psychological operation on the American people, and patriots are standing up to say, ‘Enough of this.’”
“The constitutional process has not been exhausted,” said Alexander, who had previously announced that Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., would object to House certification of the Electoral College vote in January. On Tuesday, he said six other members of the House had agreed to join Brooks and that Stop the Steal activists are pressuring the 126 House Republicans who supported the Texas attorney general’s failed lawsuit to join the effort to disrupt the certification.
Alexander has previously threatened that pro-Trump activists would “burn it all down” if the Republican Party fails to stand with Trump in his effort to stay in power. That threat was a major theme of Tuesday’s press conference. Speakers slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for referring to Joe Biden as the president-elect and for reportedly urging Republican senators not to support the effort to challenge the election outcome.
Brusewitz, identified as CEO of X Strategies, called McConnell’s remarks a “disgrace” and was blunt about plans to go after Senate Republicans who fail to stand with Trump until the bitter end. He claimed to have spoken with “many billionaires” who he said are willing to fund primary challenges in 2022. He warned McConnell—who Republican incumbents will be relying on for campaign cash—that the 2022 primary season would be “very expensive.”
“We are going to primary everyone who has said anything awful about exercising our constitutional options,” Alexander said. And he said grassroots pro-Trump activists will “take on” the Republican National Committee by seeking to replace party officials, beginning with upcoming state conventions.
Martin, who also heads the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, warned that the GOP would ignore the grassroots at its own peril, a remark seconded by one of the Michigan activists, who declared, “This is Trump’s party.”
In response to a reporter’s question about whether Trump had been undermined by members of his own team, Alexander said that one day a book will be written about the betrayals of Trump from within the White House and the RNC.
Alexander, who combined forces with right-wing religious leaders and activists to host last Saturday’s pro-Trump “prayer rally” on the National Mall, declared that Stop the Steal is “a spiritual movement.”
“Our hope is in Christ. Our hope is in God. And our hope is in the founding documents, the Constitution that we must continue to exhaust,” he said.
