A former Texas House candidate spoke out this week against the Republican Party, saying that it is “not living up to this moment.”
Michael Wood (R), whose message against former President Trump cost him a win in Texas’s recent special election, made his remarks during an interview with CNN’s John Berman on “New Day.”
“It really does kill me to say this as a proud, or once proud Republican: We’re not living up to this moment,” Wood said while noting that there are some “exceptions” like Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
“It seems like right now, the dividing line in our politics is going to be between those who speak the truth and those who engage in conspiracy theories. And that’s really unfortunate,” Wood said, according to CNN. “It feels like in a lot of ways we’ve gone through a looking glass, and those of us in the party who are against insurrection and lying are finding ourselves turned into fringe candidates.”
“It’s a sad commentary on the party,” he added. “It’s a sad commentary on the country.”
Wood has been a vocal critic of Trump and has called on his party to reject the former president and his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He finished 9th in the race for the late Rep. Ron Wright’s (R) open congressional district seat, securing just 3 percent of the vote.
The loss signaled the hold that Trump still has on the Republican Party.
“If you run for office and if you get elected to Congress, you’ve got to be willing to lose it, you know, or else you can’t do the job,” Wood told Berman. “I think a lot of people have their egos and their entire personalities tied up with being a member of Congress and all the perks that go along with that. I think they need to be willing to walk away from it.”
“And I think they need to think not just about the next election or the next news cycle, I think they need to think about history,” he continued. “I think they need to think about how they’re going to be judged and, you know, what future generations are going to say about this moment.