MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
lar Fox News personality Tucker
Carlson, of the attempt to rally
Republicans to the defense of
people arrested over their roles in
the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol,
likening them to political prison-
ers and visiting the jail where
many are being kept to argue they
are facing harsh incarceration
conditions because of their sup-
port for Trump.
House GOP leaders have avoid-
ed clashing with the group, and
their reluctance to challenge the
attacks on the 13 supporters of the
infrastructure package led to
some hard feelings within the
conference.
McCarthy tried to temper the
criticism being directed at the
members during a closed-door
meeting of the conference last
week, arguing that it was a dis-
traction from the party’s effort to
focus its criticism on Democrats,
according to three aides familiar
with the gathering.
But that message went unheed-
ed by the MAGA squad and like-
minded Republicans, such as Rep.
Chip Roy (R-Tex.), leading some
members to say the leadership
didn’t do enough to defend the
lawmakers who voted for the bill.
“I think that leadership needs
to be more assertive about the
internecine feuds. I think they
need to step in and quiet that
down,” said Rep. Tom Rice
(R-S.C.), a conservative who voted
to impeach Trump and opposed
the infrastructure package.
“Somehow we’ve gotten this idea
that we’ve got to be voting for the
team no matter how it affects
your district or your country.”
But McCarthy’s soft touch
toward the boisterous Trump loy-
alists hasn’t won him their affec-
tion, and some have said they may
not vote for him as speaker if
Republicans retake the chamber
next year.
“What’s particularly problem-
atic is, there’s no willingness to
fight for people like me....
There’s no accountability for Re-
publicans that are helping Joe
Biden pass his agenda,” Greene
said. “So you know, that’s not
leadership. Leadership leads and
doesn’t work so hard to count up
votes to be speaker when we
haven’t even taken back the ma-
jority.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Trump has spoken with Greene
the most out of the group of
House loyalists, often ranting
about Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp
(R) and his decision not to back
Trump’s false claims about elec-
tion fraud in the state, according
to two Trump advisers. The for-
mer president’s team has invited
her to various rallies because she
is popular with the crowd, break-
ing the usual rule of having speak-
ers only from the state where the
rally is held.
Others in the group have ties to
Trump they can rely on, as well.
Cawthorn spoke at Trump’s re-
election convention in 2020, and
Boebert recently went to Mar-a-
Lago for a dinner and posed with
Trump wearing a “Let’s Go Bran-
don!” dress — a phrase that is
code for a vulgar denunciation of
Biden. She has been at the club in
the past, and Trump has de-
scribed her as entertaining,
though they do not speak regular-
ly, according to people familiar
with their relationship.
Gaetz has been an outspoken
booster of Trump since he arrived
in the House in 2017 and has been
a lead defender of former Trump
adviser Stephen K. Bannon’s deci-
sion not to cooperate with the
House panel investigating the
Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and
Trump’s efforts to overturn the
2020 election results.
The House voted in October to
find Bannon in criminal con-
tempt of Congress for not comply-
ing with a subpoena from the
committee, and the Justice De-
partment announced this month
that it will prosecute him for not
cooperating with the panel’s re-
quest for information.
“Steve Bannon did nothing
wrong,” Gaetz tweeted the day the
former Trump adviser was
charged with two counts of con-
tempt of Congress.
Gaetz faces his own potential
legal problems, with the Justice
Department investigating him
over an alleged sexual relation-
ship with an underage girl, ac-
cording to people familiar with
the matter. The Florida congress-
man has portrayed himself as
being unfairly targeted because
of his close relationship with
Trump.
Gaetz and Greene, along with
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.),
have also been leading propo-
nents, with the backing of popu-ist who has defended racial segre-
gation and minimized the Holo-
caust.
“Congressman Paul A. Gosar
has been a loyal supporter of our
America First agenda, and even
more importantly, the USA,”
Trump said in a statement. “Paul
is a Congressman who is highly
respected in Arizona, strong on
Crime, Borders, our Military, and
our Veterans. He continually
fights for Lower Taxes, Less Regu-
lations, and our great, but under
siege, Second Amendment. Paul
A. Gosar has my Complete and
Total Endorsement!”
Trump’s support has been key
to the group’s rise and to keeping
McCarthy and other GOP leaders
from pushing back against their
extremist and inflammatory
statements.
Trump told advisers on
Wednesday that he was happy
McCarthy kept his members to-
gether in support of Gosar during
the censure vote, even though
Trump is not personally close to
Gosar. He has complained at
times that McCarthy does not
treat Greene, who serves as an
opening act at the former presi-
dent’s rallies, as well as he should,
according to these advisers, who,
like others, spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity to describe his
private remarks.
In one of his final meetings at
the White House, he described
her to McCarthy and others as
“terrific,” according to a person in
the room for the meeting.
“Isn’t Marjorie Taylor Greene
wonderful? Isn’t she terrific?”
Trump said.who voted for the infrastructure
bill have been punished by the
party in any way, even if their
offices have been on the receiving
end of threatening and vulgar
messages from voters.
“I don’t think it represents the
mainstream, and sometimes the
minority part of a party is the
loudest,” said Rep. Don Bacon
(R-Neb.), who voted for the roads,
bridges and broadband funding.
But the MAGA squad’s elevated
place in the party was on display
Thursday when Trump and Mc-
Carthy rallied to their side a day
after Gosar was censured by the
House.
Rather than move on from the
debate over Gosar’s behavior, Mc-
Carthy told reporters that not
only would he restore the com-
mittee assignments of Gosar and
Greene, but also probably give
them more prominent positions
if Republicans win control of the
chamber in the midterm elec-
tions.
“They may have other commit-
tee assignments. They may have
better committee assignments,”
he said. “I think with Gosar, those
are the ones he wants. Taylor
Greene, she was just a freshman. I
know she has requested others.
She has the right to serve on
committees.”
That was followed later in the
day by a ringing endorsement of
Gosar from Trump. The former
president made clear that he
stood behind the embattled Re-
publican who has stirred contro-
versy at almost every turn, includ-
ing playing a prominent role at an
event this year hosted by an activ-When the House voted to strip
Greene of her committee assign-
ments in February, only 11 Repub-
licans voted with the Democrats
even as some GOP members
made clear they rejected her past
violent and conspiratorial com-
ments. This past week, that num-
ber fell to two on a resolution to
censure Gosar and kick him off
his committees, and this time
most members focused their pub-
lic remarks on attacking Demo-
crats rather than addressing Gos-
ar’s actions.
“I think I have the support
nationally, and it’s because I
speak what regular people say. I
speak what Republicans say at
home, and you know, at dinner.
I’m saying what they say in their
breakfast meetings before work,”
Greene said. “I’m saying what
they’re saying at church and say-
ing what they’re saying in their
Bible studies. I’m saying what
these parents are saying, when
they’re going to their school
boards.”
The Trump loyalists’ influence
reflects the nature of today’s Re-
publican Party, which treats the
MAGA squad as celebrities — not
the fringe they may have repre-
sented in the party of Reagan, the
Bushes or McCain.
For House Republicans, this
means that members who have
associated with white suprema-
cists, used violent political rheto-
ric, spread Trump’s false claims
about the election and compared
pandemic public health restric-
tions to the Nazis’ treatment of
Jews are becoming a bigger part
of the party’s public face — a role
that may only grow if Trump
continues to embrace and public-
ly boost them.
“It stuns me and surprises me
that some of the voters still send
these people back. But that’s their
choice and, as frustrating as that
is to me, if that’s who they sent,
then their voices are going to be
heard here,” said Rep. John Curtis
(R-Utah), whose views align more
with the party’s pre-Trump brand
of conservatism. “It’s the job of
the voters to discipline — it’s the
job of the voters to decide who
gets to come [to Congress] and
who doesn’t get to come.”
Some House Republicans
pushed back against the idea that
Greene, Boebert and their co-
horts hold outsize influence, not-
ing that none of the 13 membersCongress. These representatives
are positioning themselves to fur-
ther purify the House GOP con-
ference as a branch of Trump’s
“Make America Great Again”
movement.
This MAGA squad consists
largely of a handful of recently
elected members and others who
lack the traditional trappings of
power such as committee chair-
manships or leadership posts.
But they have rocketed to fame —
especially on the political right —
with massive social media follow-
ings, frequent appearances on
pro-Trump media and growing
fundraising networks that get a
boost with every provocative
tweet or TV hit.
Most of all, they enjoy support
from the former president, the
most popular figure in the Repub-
lican Party, who praises them at
rallies and echoes their incendi-
ary rhetoric.
They have gained strength
with the acquiescence of House
GOP leaders who have either
backed their positions or re-
mained mostly silent when others
in the party have raised objec-
tions to their approach. And they
are asserting their influence as
polls suggest the Republicans are
on track to win control of the
House next year, giving them a
potentially decisive say in wheth-
er House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy (R-Calif.) becomes
speaker.
Besides targeting the Republi-
cans who backed the infrastruc-
ture bill — unleashing a wave of
threatening calls placed to the
offices of the 13 — these lawmak-
ers in recent weeks have led the
charge to recast the Jan. 6 attack
on the Capitol and the effort to
overturn the 2020 election results
as defiant acts by patriots, not
insurrectionists; opposed mask
mandates in the House; and de-
fended Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-
Ariz.) for posting an altered an-
ime video that depicted him kill-
ing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cor-
tez (D-N.Y.) and swinging two
swords at Biden.
Their influence, or the fear of
crossing them, has been apparent
when Democrats have sought to
punish them for violent or ex-
tremist rhetoric, with almost the
entire Republican conference ral-
lying to their side.
GOP FROM A
With a demand for party purity, T rump loyalists show their growing GOP power
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), left center, Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)
and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) sit together at a hearing.WE BRING THE
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