House

Amash says he’s been ‘disenchanted’ with conservative peers who won’t push back on Trump

by Brett Samuels - 03/10/19 2:35 PM ET

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said in an interview published Sunday that he’s been “disenchanted” enough at times to consider leaving the House Freedom Caucus over the conservative group’s unflinching support of President Trump.

Amash expressed some reluctance to CNN about the extent to which his fellow Freedom Caucus members have backed Trump, even on areas where they previously lambasted former President Obama.

“From the time the president was elected, I was urging them to remain independent and to be willing to push back against the President where they thought he was wrong,” Amash told the news outlet. “They’ve decided to stick with the president time and again, even where they disagree with him privately.”

{mosads}He pointed to the caucus’s opposition to Obama’s executive orders to skirt Congress on certain policy matters, and said his colleagues have “delegitimized objections to the president” by backing Trump on similar measures.

“They are good, kind people,” Amash told CNN. “I may have my disagreements with some of the current approach, but I’d still take them over pretty much anyone in Congress.”

Amash has held firm to his libertarian views on executive power and foreign policy, bucking his party on a series of votes during the Trump administration. Amash last month co-sponsored a resolution to block Trump’s national emergency declaration to secure funding for a border wall.

He said last week that he’s not ruling out seeking the Libertarian nomination for the presidency in 2020, though he acknowledged it’s “not on my radar right now.”

“But I think that it is important that we have someone in there that is presenting a vision for America that is different from what these two parties are presenting,” Amash said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Amash shared the CNN story with a line appearing to quote the singer Adele.