When U.S. Rep. Tom Rice voted to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, it was the beginning of the end of his political career.
Angry calls and emails — including three death threats — flooded the South Carolina Republican’s office. The next year, as Rice ran for a sixth term, a sheriff’s deputy often guarded him at public events. Trump backed Rice’s foe in the party’s primary election. At a rally, the ex-president warned voters that the congressman "partnered with the Democrats to stab the Republican Party and, frankly, to stab our country in the back.”
Rice got crushed in the primary. Today, the one-time conservative darling, a small-government fiscal hawk, is shunned by former allies and some old friends, he said. He feels betrayed by fellow Republicans who, "rather than upholding their oath and defending the Constitution, decided their position and their power was worth more.”
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