The story of Republican Congressman Mac Thornberry’s “retirement” just took an interesting turn – and it’s not good for Donald Trump

| 2:26 pm EDT September 30, 2019
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Earlier today, Palmer Report brought you the story of how House Republican Mac Thornberry has announced out of nowhere that he’s retiring. We pointed out that, given the timing, it sure seemed like he took one look at the deranged things Donald Trump was tweeting over the weekend, and decided to run away screaming.

Now it’s starting to sound like that’s indeed precisely what happened. Scott Wong from The Hill is expressing surprise that Mac Thornberry is retiring, because Thornberry told him just recently that he was planning to run for reelection in 2020. Thornberry’s about-face is leading a number of pundits to ask what’s suddenly going on with him. We just don’t think it’s that complicated.

Mac Thornberry represents the kind of overwhelmingly pro-Trump congressional district where you either support Donald Trump, or you get primaried by a pro-Trump Republican candidate and you go home. Thornberry now finds himself in a situation where the only way to keep his seat would be to continue supporting Trump.

It sure sounds like Mac Thornberry simply took a look at what played out over the weekend and decided that it wasn’t worth keeping his own seat if it meant he had to support a guy who’s calling for a civil war, and calling for Congressmen to be arrested – and so he’s retiring. If so, good for Thornberry. Interestingly, he’ll still have to vote on articles of impeachment on his way out the door. We’ll see what he does. More importantly, we’ll see how many more Republicans in pro-Trump districts continue following him out the door.