“I move a lot faster than Chuck Schumer, I can tell you that,” the 65-year-old Braun said in an interview in his office Wednesday, just hours before he and most other Senate Republicans would vote to acquit Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
“I told [Sen. John] Barrasso, ‘We’re going to have to be a little quicker, we’re getting outmaneuvered … So I ended up keeping an eye on Chuck and got down there first those last several days.”
And it worked. Braun morphed into a talking point tour du force, clocking dozens of appearances on every cable news channel and in both local and major newspapers over the last several weeks.
Just over a year into his term, Braun has become a prominent GOP voice on impeachment, joking that he spends more time on TV than probably any Republican senator beside Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s closest allies.
But the freshman senator said it was a natural move to enter “the lion’s den” of CNN and MSNBC after a brutal, nationalized primary in 2018 where he eventually pulled off an upset against two sitting GOP congressmen after initially polling at 1 percent with Hoosier voters. Plus, he said, there was little choice if Republicans wanted to get their message out at a time when most of their members would rather remain out of the spotlight: “Generally, most people don’t want to do it.”
For a businessman turned unlikely senator who spent most of his first year lying low, the sudden spotlight wasn’t gaffe free.
For example, Braun went further than many in his own party by asserting during a press conference that Trump didn’t ask Ukraine to investigate the Bidens or withhold foreign aid as part of the pressure campaign, despite evidence to the contrary.
“I’m not saying it’s okay. I’m not saying it’s appropriate. I’m saying it didn’t happen,” Braun said at the time. His answer was panned on Twitter but Braun quickly embraced the criticism, tweeting out the clip from his official account.
Whereas other Republican senators at times struggled to answer if they thought Trump’s request for a “favor” on the call with the Ukrainian president was appropriate, Braun leaned in, unabashedly defending the president at every opportunity.
When a press conference featuring several other prominent Republican was abruptly canceled last week as the GOP struggled to respond to the latest John Bolton revelations, Braun was undeterred, showing up with Barrasso to face the barrage of questions from reporters.
“Well I think there, the official story would be ‘conflicts,’” Braun explained when asked why several of the other GOP senators bowed out of the press conference. “I’m guessing the unofficial story could have been maybe that was a topic that was hot.”
Braun is part of a chatty freshman class who frequently hold court with reporters, including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.). The public posture is a break in a chamber defined by its long-standing traditions and often unspoken seniority rules, including that junior members are more to be seen and not heard when they first arrive.
“I wanted to sit back and watch and learn,” Barrasso said of his experience when he first came to the Senate in 2007.
But Barrasso, now the chamber’s No. 3 Republican and a frequent partner during Braun’s many media appearances throughout the trial, said the Senate has evolved in many ways, including this, and Braun has embraced the opportunity.
“When they take breaks in the trial, some people want to go and grab a candy bar or sit down and make a phone call,” Barrasso said in an interview. “And he wanted to talk about what was happening so it showed a real level of commitment and energy.”
And talk he did. Within a span of minutes, Braun could often be found on the second floor chatting with reporters penned in just outside the chamber before hustling down to the basement to make a quick appearance at a bank of microphones, and then trekking to another camera setup in one of the Senate office buildings before circling back to the chamber in time for the trial to restart.
Even Trump has noticed Braun’s nonstop media blitz, praising him for being “a big fixture on television and doing a great job” during a signing ceremony for the new North American trade agreement last week.
Democrats, too, have paid attention to Braun as one of the few Republicans willing to go on air and defend Trump and the party amid the upheaval of impeachment.
“There’s a senator from Indiana, Braun or Brown, I’m not sure, who said on ‘Meet the Press,’ we want to get rid of this, we want to get impeachment done, so we can get to the people’s business,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters on Tuesday.
Source: politico.com
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