In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law. Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.
Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey at WP:Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced little more than a week ago that the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol had been “provoked” by Donald Trump. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Trump “bears responsibility” for failing to respond more quickly to the bloody incursion.Olivia Beavers at Politico:
But that was then.
The nation’s two most powerful elected Republicans have signaled that they are ready to look past questions of responsibility for the violent effort to overturn the result of the presidential election, an attempt that left a Capitol Police officer and four rioters dead, as they maneuver to avoid a divisive battle within the Republican Party and try to position it to reclaim power in 2022.
McConnell (R-Ky.) voted Tuesday against a procedural motion to proceed with Trump’s impeachment in the Senate, while McCarthy (R-Calif.) planned to meet with Trump in Florida on Thursday to mend relations that were frayed by the Jan. 6 attack, according to an adviser to the former president.
McCarthy is meeting face-to-face with Trump today in the minority leader’s latest attempt to get back in the ex-president’s good graces. (H/t to Punchbowl News, which first reported these plans.) As many of you know, McCarthy incensed the former president with his impeachment floor speech, as well as floating censuring the president over the deadly Jan. 6 attacks.
Our friends at Playbook report that Trumpworld is elated: “It’s the first solid bit of evidence that Donald Trump is still in charge of the party,” one Trump adviser told them.
McCarthy has a lot to gain too: The House GOP is still Trump’s party. If McCarthy wants the confidence of his members – and the eventual speakership if Republicans take back the House – he needs the backing of the Trump wing.
Side note: In a sign of just how deep loyalty to Trump runs, one House staffer who works for an anti-certification GOP member tells me their office has received multiple calls from constituents who say the rioters didn’t inflict enough damage and that there should’ve been more people storming the Capitol.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene isn’t doing McCarthy any favors. The freshman is facing widespread condemnation for her incendiary remarks before she ran for Congress, and she isn’t backing down.
The backlash over her social media activity, where she endorsed violent, QAnon-tied conspiracy theories, is escalating. Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) is introducing a resolution that pushes for Greene to be expelled from Congress over what he argued was her “advocacy for extremism and sedition,” a call that other Democrats have echoed if she doesn’t resign.
Em Steck and Andrew Kaczynski, CNN:
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress, a CNN KFile review of hundreds of posts and comments from Greene's Facebook page shows.
Greene, who represents Georgia's 14th Congressional District, frequently posted far-right extremist and debunked conspiracy theories on her page, including the baseless QAnon conspiracy which casts former President Donald Trump in an imagined battle against a sinister cabal of Democrats and celebrities who abuse children.
In one post, from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said "a bullet to the head would be quicker" to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the "deep state" working against Trump.
Video of Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene confronting Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg before she was elected to Congress went viral Wednesday amid an uproar over newly surfaced comments she made in 2018 and 2019 as reported by CNN's KFile.
In the video from March 2019, Greene follows Hogg as he walks toward the US Capitol. She can be heard making false and baseless claims as she asks him a series of questions related to gun rights and how he was able to meet with senators. Hogg continues to walk without addressing Greene.
"He's a coward," Greene says at the end of the video as Hogg walks away, claiming his activism was funded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who is often the subject of far-right conspiracy theories, and other liberals. "He can't say one word because he can't defend his stance."
Greene -- who has previously called Hogg "#littleHitler" -- said in a written statement to CNN that the video was taken while she was in Washington, "going from office to office in the Senate to oppose the radical gun control agenda that David Hogg was pushing."
