Kevin McCarthy meets with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene amid outcry over her embrace of outlandish conspiracy theories – The Denver Post
WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met late Tuesday with hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as Republicans wrestled over how to handle a bipartisan outcry over her embrace of outlandish conspiracy theories, including suggestions that mass shootings at the nation’s schools were staged.
Aides to McCarthy and Greene offered no immediate comment after the two spent around 90 minutes together in his Capitol office. Their session came as the GOP faced unrest from opposing ends of the Republican spectrum over Greene and Rep. Liz Cheney, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump. The strife underscores GOP fissures as the party seeks a path forward without Trump in the White House.
Without action by Republicans, Democrats were threatening to force an embarrassing House vote Wednesday on removing Greene, R-Ga., from her assigned committees. She had been named to the education committee, a decision that drew harsh criticism because of her suggestions that school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Parkland, Florida, could be hoaxes.
The House GOP Steering Committee, a leadership-dominated body that makes committee assignments for the party, also met late Tuesday.
On social media, Greene has also expressed racist views and supported for calls for violence against Democratic politicians, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. McCarthy, R-Calif., has stopped short of criticizing the first-term congresswoman, who was dubbed a “future Republican Star” by Trump last summer and has remained a firm Trump supporter.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and others have boosted pressure this week on the House GOP to act.
In a statement that didn’t use Greene’s name, he called her “loony lies” a “cancer” on the GOP. It was the latest indication of his concerns about letting the GOP’s most pro-Trump, hardest-right factions gain too much sway in the party.
In addition, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who’s been trying to combat the GOP’s pro-Trump wing, said he favored removing Greene from her committees, saying Republicans must “take a stand to disavow” her.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a Trump critic and the GOP 2012 presidential nominee, said Tuesday that Republicans must “separate ourselves from the people that are the wacky weeds.”
On the GOP’s furthest right wing, lawmakers were itching to oust Cheney, a traditional conservative and daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, from her post as the No. 3 House Republican after she voted to impeach Trump last month. McConnell praised Cheney, R-Wyo., as “a leader with deep convictions and courage,” but House GOP lawmakers planned to meet privately Wednesday to decide her political fate.
The looming decisions over Cheney and Greene represent a moment of reckoning for a party struggling with its future. Two weeks after Trump left office, House Republicans are effectively deciding whether to prioritize the former president’s norm-shattering behavior and conspiracy theories and retain the loyalty of his voters over more establishment conservative values.
“At the very moment that Joe Biden is lurching to the left is the moment that the Republican Party is lurching out of existence,” GOP pollster Frank Luntz said of the new Democratic president, who is preparing to try muscling a mammoth COVID-19 relief package through the narrowly divided Congress.
“We can either become a fringe party that never wins elections or rebuild the big tent party of Reagan,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, one of the few elected Republicans who routinely rebuked Trump, said in a written statement. Without mentioning Cheney or Greene, he added, “I urge congressional Republicans to make the right choice.”
But pro-Trump forces in and out of Washington remain powerful. John Fredericks, who led Trump’s Virginia campaigns in 2016 and 2020, warned that there would be party primaries against Cheney defenders.
“We’ve got millions and millions of woke, motivated, America-first Trump voters that believe in the movement,” Fredericks said. “If you’re going to keep Liz Cheney in leadership, there’s no party.”
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., a leader of the effort to oust Cheney, says he has enough support to succeed.
“She’s brought this on herself,” Rosendale said. He said Cheney, who was joined by only nine other Republicans in backing impeachment, was wrong to not forewarn colleagues about her decision.
Republicans have said that GOP members would unite against a Democratic move to remove Greene from her committee assignments and that such an effort would help Greene cast herself as a victim of partisan Democrats.
As if to illustrate that point, Greene herself tweeted fundraising appeals Tuesday that said, “With your support, the Democrat mob can’t cancel me,” beneath a picture of herself standing with Trump.
But Democrats said they think some Republicans will support ousting Green from committees and that a House vote will make McCarthy look weak and further erode GOP support among moderate suburban voters.
The handling of Greene and Cheney presented a tricky balancing act for McCarthy.
Penalizing Cheney for what McConnell called a “vote of conscience” on impeachment would be awkward without also punishing Greene. Action against either risked angering the GOP’s numerous Trump supporters or its more traditional conservative backers.
“You can’t do the normal political song and dance and appease this side slightly and appease that side slightly,” said former Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., who lost a 2018 party primary after clashing with Trump. “The whole nature of the Trump phenomenon is there is no appeasement.”
McCarthy has said he supports Cheney but also has “concerns,” leaving his stance on her unclear.
___
Peoples reported from New York. AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report from Washington.
Source: Read Full Article
