CNN
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Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump said Sunday that Maryland Republican Senate candidate Larry Hogan “does not deserve the respect of any Republican” for calling on Americans to respect the verdict in President Donald Trump’s hush money trial before it was handed down.
Speaking with CNN’s Casey Hunt on “State of the Union,” Lara Trump called Hogan’s comments “ridiculous” and said the former Maryland governor “should have thought it through” before making the statement.
“Let me just say this: I do not support what he just said. I think it’s absurd,” said Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law. “At this point, he doesn’t deserve the respect of anybody in the Republican Party, and frankly, if that’s how you feel, he doesn’t deserve the respect of anybody in America. And that makes me so angry to hear that.”
Hogan urged Americans to “respect the verdict and the legal process” before a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump on all 34 charges of falsifying business records last week, making Trump the first former president in U.S. history to be convicted of a felony.
“At such a dangerously divided moment in our nation’s history, leaders of all parties must not add fuel to the fire with further poisonous partisanship, but reaffirm the rule of law that has made our country great,” Hogan said.
Asked Sunday whether the Republican National Committee would withhold funding from Hogan’s campaign, Lara Trump declined to answer directly but again called Hogan’s comments “ridiculous.”
“We’ll have financial details later, but as the Republican co-chair, I think he should never have said anything like that,” she said.
A Maryland Senate seat for Hogan would give Republicans a boost in the Democratic-dominated state. He was first elected governor in 2014, handily re-elected in 2018 and left office with high approval ratings in January 2023.
In recent years, Maryland has been dominated by Democrats at both the state and federal levels; George H. W. Bush was the last Republican presidential candidate to win the Old Line State, in 1988.
Lara Trump added Sunday that “the American people have really spoken out” following the hush-money conviction.
“The American people rose up, and within 48 hours of Donald Trump’s verdict being read, our campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $70 million in digital fundraising,” she said.
“I think this was a very swift, very rapid, very strong response from the American people. This is too much,” Lara Trump added. “The American people are outraged and they’re speaking out.”
