Former President Trump called Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) a “RINO coward” for testifying in the January 6 hearing and reiterated his support for David Farnsworth, a candidate running against Bowers for state Senate.
“Rusty Bowers is a RINO coward who participated against the Republican Party in the totally partisan unselect committee of political thugs and hacks the other day and disgraced himself, and he disgraced the state of Arizona,” Trump said during an Arizona rally held for several of his endorsed candidates.
“David Farnsworth is going to do a fantastic job. And importantly, I have to say, you have so many advantages. That would be the guy I’d most like to run against ‘cause this guy’s bad news,” he added.
Bowers testified before the House Select Committee last month and denied Trump’s claim that he had told the former president that Trump had won the state of Arizona in 2020 and that the election had been rigged.
“Anywhere, anyone, anytime has said that I said that the election was rigged, that would not be true,” Bowers said to the committee in June.
“And I don’t know if that was a gaffe or maybe he didn’t think through what he said, but both myself and others in my group … both remember that specifically, and afterwards we kind of laughed about it,” Bowers said.
Earlier this week, the Arizona GOP executive committee voted to censure Bowers.
“The @AZGOP Executive Committee formally censured Rusty Bowers tonight— he is no longer a Republican in good standing & we call on Republicans to replace him at the ballot box in the August primary. Full press release from AZGOP coming soon,” Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Party, tweeted this week.
While Trump was campaigning for his Arizona candidates, including gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) on Friday, former Vice President Mike Pence was also endorsing his candidate for the governor’s race, Karrin Taylor Robson (R), the same day.
Bowers reportedly attended the rally for Robson.
The Arizona House Speaker also claimed that Rudy Giuliani told him Trump’s allies did not have specific evidence showing that election fraud had been committed during the last presidential election.
