- Republican Rep. Tom Rice says he regrets voting against certifying the 2020 presidential election results.
- He said Trump was a "coward" who "did nothing to stop" the January 6 riot and watched it "with pride."
- Rice was also among the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting an insurrection.
Republican Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina said in an interview on Wednesday that he regrets voting against certifying the electoral votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania after the January 6 storming of the Capitol.
"In retrospect I should have voted to certify," Rice told POLITICO's Olivia Beavers. "Because President Trump was responsible for the attack on the Capitol."
His declaration, according to POLITICO, makes him the first of the 147 House Republicans who voted against certifying the election results to publicly state that they regret their vote.
Rice was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection. He was the only one in that group of GOP lawmakers who also voted against certifying the election results.
"He has not visited the injured and grieving. He has not offered condolences. Yesterday in a press briefing at the border, he said his comments were 'perfectly appropriate,'" Rice said at the time about his vote to impeach Trump. "I have backed this President through thick and thin for four years. I campaigned for him and voted for him twice. But, this utter failure is inexcusable."
And Rice has defended his vote in the months since the attack on the Capitol, comparing Trump to a dictator in a June interview.
"If the president, by force, can intimidate Congress into voting their way, then we might as well do away with Congress and hand it over to a king," Rice told The Washington Post. "What he did in my mind is what dictators do."
Rice told POLITICO that though he thought there were "real issues with the election," he came to change his mind about how he should vote after a mob of Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol. Still, Rice added, he needed to keep his word to voters.
"In the wee hours of that disgraceful night, while waiting for the Capitol of our great country to be secured, I knew I should vote to certify," Rice told POLITICO. "But because I had made a public announcement of my intent to object, I did not want to go back on my word. So yeah, I regret my vote to object."
Rice also said that Trump watched the January 6 storming of the Capitol "with pride" and "did nothing to stop it." He also said the House was "sacked and defaced."
"There was a coward in that equation," Rice said, alluding to the former president's tweet on January 6 declaring that Pence "didn't have the courage to do what should have been done" by trying to overturn the election results as a mob of his supporters entered the building.
"But it wasn't Mike Pence," said Rice.
