"RINO" former Michigan Congressman Peter Meijer tells the Atlantic's McKay Coppins that other Republicans have told him they just hope fat former President Trump dies, and soon, so the party can move forward without being stuck with the Orange Warlord for another rough election cycle – or worse – a "catastrophic" third-party run against Biden and the GOP nominee.
"You have a lot of folks who are just wishing for [Trump's] mortal demise… I've heard from a lot of people who will go onstage and put on the red hat, and then give me a call the next day and say, 'I can't wait until this guy dies.' And it's like, Good Lord," said Meijer, terming the Republican strategy for dealing with Trump as "actuarial arbitrage," adding that "There's no capacity [to say], 'All right, let's clean the slate and figure out what we stand for and build from there.'"
Newly-retired Ohio Senator Rob Portman believes that if Trump loses the 2024 primary he'll exit politics without launching a third party campaign. "I think at the end of the day, he's unlikely to want to put himself in that position when he could be more of a Republican senior statesman who talks about the policies that were enacted in his administration," Portman told Coppins, who then "involuntarily" laughed. "Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part," Portman admitted in response.