Trump blasts Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers as a 'RINO coward' after the GOP leader testified before the January 6 committee

• Trump blasted Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers as a "RINO coward" over his January 6 testimony.
• He said Bowers "participated against the Republican Party" by testifying.

Former President Donald Trump during a Friday rally in Arizona derided the Republican state House Speaker Rusty Bowers as a "RINO coward" while boosting his GOP primary opponent in an upcoming state Senate primary.

Bowers — who has been Arizona's House speaker since 2019 — drew the ire of Trump for detailing the pressure campaign that was directed toward him over his refusal to entertain overturning now-President Joe Biden's narrow victory in the state in 2020 while appearing before the January 6 committee.

"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 at the GOP event in Prescott Valley.

The former president then highlighted his endorsement of David Farnsworth, a fellow Republican who will face off against Bowers in a primary for the 10th district state Senate race next month.

"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," Trump told the crowd.

When Bowers testified before the House panel in June, he said that he never told the former president of any major irregularities in Arizona's vote count or raised disputes with Biden's win in the state, stating that if "anywhere, anyone, anytime has said that I said that the election was rigged, that would not be true."

Bowers also said that ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani revealed that the former president's allies could not point to firm evidence of fraud in the election.

"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," the speaker said during the hearing.

(Earlier this year, Bowers — who backed Trump in 2020 — tabled GOP-crafted legislation that would have allowed the Arizona legislature to overturn statewide election results.)

Last week, the Arizona Republican Party's executive committee censured Bowers after his testimony before the January 6 panel, with Trump loyalist and former Senate candidate Dr. Kelli Ward announcing the decision on social media.

"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," she tweeted.

Bowers in a recent interview with Insider's Bryan Metzger said that "much of what" Trump has done recently "has been tyrannical," remarking that he would prefer to back a new candidate in the 2024 presidential election. During the conversation, the speaker brought up Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence as viable candidates.

"DeSantis has some of the Trumpian persona, but he's got some character," he told Insider. "Mr. Pence. My family is very solidly impressed with Mr. Pence."