By Jacob Jarvis
Senior Reporter
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A campaign group opposed to President Donald Trump will target his allies in the Senate next after criticizing the U.S. leader's response to the coronavirus crisis in its "Mourning in America" ad released this week.
The Lincoln Project clashed with Donald Trump after releasing the video, which highlighted the toll of COVID-19 related deaths in the United States.
In response to the critique of his leadership Trump proceeded to call those involved, mostly prominent strategists with ties to prior Republican campaigns, "loser types" in a retaliatory tweet.
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George Conway, a conservative attorney who is married to the president's senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, is among those linked to the campaign, as is Republican strategist Steve Schmidt. The latter worked for former President George W. Bush, late Arizona Sen. John McCain and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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One of the group's founders, John Weaver, a political strategist who worked with Sen. McCain during his presidential campaigns, told Newsweek its members will not be "intimidated" by the president and his recent "rage tweet" targeting them.
"This 'president' has but one act: intimidation. But he knows he won't be intimidated and neither will the majority of American voters in November," he told Newsweek.
Weaver added that The Lincoln Project intends to continue its "Mourning in America" campaign, the name of which is a play on an ad from former Republican President Ronald Reagan's successful 1984 re-election campaign called "Morning in America."
Senate allies of Trump are also on the group's radar.
Weaver added: "Thanks to Trump, we'll keep 'Mourning in America' running longer, then get back to our regular programming, which will include more assaults on Trump's record and going after some of his most ardent enablers in the Senate."
He told Newsweek a specific senator has already been lined up as an upcoming target.
Fellow Lincoln Project founder Ron Steslow, a marketing strategist and political consultant who left the GOP in 2016 according to The Lincoln Project website, also hit back at the president's response to the ad.
He told Newsweek it should be the rate of COVID-19 deaths "keeping the President of the United States awake in the middle of the night."
Steslow added: "Notice that for all of his blustering, he couldn't address the truth in our ad: the crisis of human suffering, the economic devastation, and the desperation Americans are feeling are due to his failure to rise to this challenge."
Jennifer Horn, another one of the group's founders who was formerly chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party tweeted that she and the group were "not going anywhere" in response to backlash from Trump.
The Lincoln Project hits out at Trump's record during his tenure and calls upon voters to back "Democrats who support the Constitution over Republicans who do not."
The group previously endorsed Democrat and former Vice President Joe Biden for president.
Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment.
The group's criticism of the president's reaction to the coronavirus pandemic comes as cases in the U.S. continue to rise, with more than 1.2 million confirmed and more than 71,000 related deaths, according to John Hopkins University statistics.
The number of cases of COVID-19 in various U.S. states as of May 5 is detailed in the infographic below, provided by Statista.
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