Republican National Committee (RNC) Co-Chair Lara Trump chastised former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, now the moderate GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland, for saying Americans should accept the verdict in former President Trump’s hush money criminal trial, regardless of the outcome.
“I think anybody who’s not speaking up in the face of really something that should never again have seen the light of day, a trial that would never have been brought against any other person aside from Donald Trump, doesn’t deserve the respect of anyone,” Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of the former president, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday when asked about Hogan.
“He doesn’t deserve the respect of anyone in the Republican Party at this point and, quite frankly, anybody in America, if that’s the way you feel. That’s very upsetting to hear that,” Lara Trump added, about Hogan.
Former President Trump was found guilty Thursday on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a scheme to shield potentially damaging information from the American public ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Hogan, in the moments ahead of the guilty verdict announcement Thursday, wrote on the social platform X, “Regardless of the result, I urge all Americans to respect the verdict and the legal process.”
“At this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders — regardless of party — must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. We must reaffirm what has made this nation great: the rule of law,” the former Maryland governor added.
Trump adviser Chris LaCivita soon after responded, “You just ended your campaign.”
Hogan — who faces Democratic candidate Angela Alsobrooks in the November general election to represent the blue state of Maryland in the U.S. Senate — struck a markedly different tone from the sentiment expressed by the vast majority of the Republican Party. Many took aim at the trial and made claims that it was politically motivated.
Lara Trump on Sunday repeatedly dodged questions on whether the RNC would continue backing Hogan’s bid for the Senate seat, after he made the remark.
Pressed on whether the RNC would use its resources to help Hogan or whether Republicans are willing to cede the Senate seat in Maryland to Democrats, Lara Trump said multiple times that “I will get back to you on all the specifics.”
“What I will tell you is that we, of course, want to win as a party, but that is a shame. And I think he should have thought long and hard before he said that publicly,” she said.
The Hill has reached out to the Hogan campaign for a response.