Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who recently left the Democrat Party, explains the switch and weighs in on the impeachment trial on ‘Fox & Friends.’
President Trump will hold a rally in Wildwood, N.J., on Tuesday, a location choice that may have something to do with the actions of one of the state’s lawmakers.
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New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew confirmed to Fox News on Tuesday that he will join Trump on stage after the lawmaker recently made a grand gesture of support for the president.
“He asked me what he could do to help me,” Van Drew said of Trump’s decision to hold a rally in the Southern New Jersey town.
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Van Drew switched from the Democrats to the Republicans after he refused to support Trump’s impeachment. He was one of two Democrats who voted against opening an impeachment inquiry.
Van Drew told Fox & Friends during an interview at the time that he was a “different kind of Democrat” who has “always believed in bipartisanship.”
“There is nothing that has turned up that truly is impeachable,” Van Drew said. “We all must remember that impeachment was something that our Founding Fathers set to be rare, extremely rare.”
Trump tweeted support for Van Drew, saying he had always heard the lawmaker is “very smart.”
Van Drew met with Trump at the Oval Office shortly after he voted against impeachment to disclose that he was switching parties. Van Drew said during an interview on Fox News Tuesday that the pair met for more than an hour and he felt like they understood one another.
Van Drew said he decided to leave his the Democrats because of the party’s “lurch to the left.”
“As time went along it just became more and more apparent to me — aside from the impeachment issue — that the party had changed and wasn’t the big tent that I was used to and it was time for a change,” Van Drew told Fox News.
Trump won Van Drew’s district, which includes the popular casino town of Atlantic City, by about five percentage points in 2016, making Van Drew’s seat as a Democrat vulnerable.
Van Drew said that Trump has endorsed him and will do so again on Tuesday night.
The rally is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday at the Wildwoods Convention Center.
