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The Republican Party is a “big tent party”, according to US vice president JD Vance, who made the remarks at a rally with Michigan GOP members on Monday.
The former Ohio senator, who was speaking at an event in support of the state’s Republican candidates for the November midterms, told the crowd: “I’m not asking you to check your free thought and your opinions at the door. In fact, we welcome them.
“We’re a big tent party, we welcome people with differences of opinions and differences of backgrounds.”
X/Twitter users, however, soon disagreed.
“Beyond laughable. Trump allows zero dissent,” wrote journalist Mehdi Hasan:
MeidasTouch tweeted: “They’ve essentially kicked out multiple members of their party for pushing to release the Epstein Files or for saying Trump didn’t win the 2020 election”:
“Ok, ask a Republican before Congress ‘who won the 2020 presidential election’,” said commentator Covie, alluding to Trump nominees who have failed to state that Joe Biden was the winner of that year’s vote:
One account commented: “’Big tent party’ is one way to describe a circus”:
And writer Zaid Jilani responded: “Like Peter Meijer, MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene], and Thomas Massie?”:
Former representative Peter Meijer voted to impeach Trump over the events of January 6, only for the US president to throw his support behind his challenger in the Republican primary in 2022, John Gibbs, who won.
Just days before she resigned as Georgia representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene was branded “wacky” and a “ranting Lunatic” by Trump, with Greene claiming it was talk of the Epstein Files which “sent him over the edge”.
Then, in the case of Thomas Massie, Trump told voters to “vote the bum out” in his primary back in May, branding him the “worst Republican Congressman in history”.
He ended up losing said primary.
Vance’s comments about the Republican Party weren’t the only moment from the Michigan rally to generate a reaction online, as he also said the US was about to “celebrate” the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
“We’re about to celebrate the 25th year … or commemorate the 25th year of those terrible terrorist attacks and celebrate all the brave heroes who made it, frankly, as terrible as it was, it could have been so much worse,” he said.
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