Kevin Brady was the powerful top Republican on the House Ways and Means. He’s been in Congress for 26 years and is retiring today. He might be considered too right-wing to be part of the establishment anywhere else, but he’s from Texas, so… establishment. Yesterday, on Fox News Sunday he said that George Santos is a liar and should “consider resigning.” Brady’s been around long enough to understand that if Santos sticks around, he’ll rapidly become the Democratic Party’s example of what the GOP stands for— especially since they no longer have Madison Cawthorn to use for that.
Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that “Even by the low standards for truth-telling in politics, the scope of the falsehoods from the newly elected House Republican has been breathtaking… With echoes of the fabulist protagonist at the heart of The Talented Mr. Ripley book and movie, Santos has spun an elaborate web of lies and deceptions about his identity and his past, according to acquaintances, public records, media reports and, in some cases, by his own admission. He also claims to have suddenly come into millions of dollars in wealth over the past 18 months, even as the financial data company Dun & Bradstreet estimated in July that his private family firm, the Devolder Organization, only had $43,688 in revenue.
The Post noted that Santos myriad lies included claiming “he is part Black. He said he is the grandson of Holocaust survivors. He claimed he helped develop ‘carbon capture technology.’ He claimed to have worked at companies that never employed him. He claimed to be a graduate of two universities, only to admit that he has no college degree at all. He even said his parents’ financial hardship forced him to leave the prestigious Horace Mann School in the Bronx ‘months’ before he could graduate.” The school never heard of him until the media exposed his web of lies last month… ‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ said Gerard Kassar, chair of the Conservative Party of New York State. ‘His entire life seems to be made up. Everything about him is fraudulent.’” Kassar’s Conservative party endorsed him. As did Trump, of course.
Meanwhile, out-going Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson did his exit interview on ABC’s This Week, where he said Trump’s role in the J-6 insurrection should disqualify him from running for president again, something virtually all Democrats agree with but few Republicans ever say aloud. “I do not believe that Donald Trump should be the next president of the United States… I think Jan. 6 really disqualifies him for the future.” He said he’d do whatever he could to make sure Trump doesn’t get the nomination.
The Republicans who resisted the fascist tide taking over their party are warning of the dangers of a party run by characters like Trump and Santos. Michigan Republican Congressman Peter Meijer, a mainstream conservative who voted to impeach Trump, was defeated by John Gibbs, a MAGA kook, in the primary. The MAGA kook lost the general and a Blue Dog Hillary Scholten will represent the district now. Meijer sat down with Adam Wren for an exit interview. He described the state of the Michigan GOP as “Highly uncertain. The midterm elections were a bloodbath in the state. We lost control of the state house and the state senate for the first time in 40 years. We don’t have any prominent statewide elected offices at all. All the Democratic incumbents swept, obviously. West Michigan will have its first Democratic representation in Congress since Watergate. It’s a pretty bleak outcome. In a moment that should force a lot of introspection, I’ve seen a lot of folks who are responsible for the debacle only rising in stature.”
Meijer doesn’t see him running in a Republican primary any time soon. “What is required from a purity test standpoint— folks know they need his endorsement, and then what they end up doing to get that endorsement ends up being disqualifying,” he told Wren.
I think in a lot of the media there’s such a Trump fixation. He tapped into something that predated him and that will remain after him. In some places, he delivered, but the positive-to-negative ratio started to shift pretty dramatically, giving into some of the most unchecked impulses. We don’t really have the moderating effect of the water cooler in American life, right, where you’re like, ‘I think this thing is important out there.’ I don’t think there’s a race of lizard people who are controlling our lives.
My frustration is [conspiracy theories] lead folks on the right to go down these rabbit holes and chase their own tails. Meanwhile, some of the really serious, severe things that are critical for us to get ready for the future of the country: competing with China, dealing with our deficit, dealing with entitlement reforms. These are not easy things that we can like, manage in bite-sized chunks.
So much of the energy is ultimately expended down avenues that are just hamster wheels. I think that gives Democrats a tangible advantage. We saw that electorally, when they can at least pretend to be speaking to issues and not seem crazy, even if they are unwilling to change their policy outcomes that are not making those issues better. At least rhetorically, they seem to be coming from a more reality-grounded place.
Another Republican whose last day in the House is today, is Adam Kinzinger, who decided to retire rather than face certain defeat either at the hands of a MAGA primary opponent or of a Democrat in a newly gerrymandered blue district. He was on State of the Union yesterday. Dana Bash began the interview by asking him if her thinks Trump “will be charged for crimes.” He noted that he’s not a lawyer but said that “what he did, from a presidential perspective, from an oath perspective, is a problem. As we have gotten into this, I look, and I'm like, yes, if this is not a crime, I don't know what it is. If a president can incite an insurrection and not be held accountable, then, really, there's no limit to what a president can do or can't do. And so, yes, I do think, ultimately, when we get to where we're going to go, I think the Justice Department will do the right thing. I think he will be charged. And I, frankly, think he should be, I mean, everything we have uncovered, from what he did with the Justice Department, to everything leading up to January 6, to on January 6, sitting there for 180 minutes and watching this occur in the hope that maybe, just maybe that last attempt to stay in power will work… [I]f he is not guilty of a crime, then I, frankly, fear for the future of this country, because now every future president can say, hey, here's the bar. And the bar is, do everything you can to stay in power.”
BASH: What does it say about the future of your party, the Republican Party, that Marjorie Taylor Greene and people like her are kind of ascendant, and the Adam Kinzingers and Liz Cheneys of the world are no longer in the Congress? KINZINGER: Well, I think it says to me that the Republican Party is not the future of this country unless it corrects, right, unless there's a change, because I got to tell you, if you think of a successful America in 20 years, that's not going to be an America based on what Marjorie Taylor Greene wants, or based on what some of these radicals want. The only way this country can succeed is if we learn to work together. BASH: You once called Kevin McCarthy a true friend. KINZINGER: Yes. BASH: If you could sit him down, just the two of you, right now, what would you say? KINZINGER: I would just let him know I'm disappointed, right? I mean, he as a leader, not just a member of Congress, as a leader of Congress, he had an opportunity to tell the truth to the American people. And he went to Mar-a-Lago a couple of weeks after January 6 and resurrected Donald Trump. He is the reason Donald Trump is still a factor. He is the reason that some of the crazy elements of the House still exist. BASH: If he didn't go down there, you think Trump would have been iced out? KINZINGER: I do. I do. I think, first off, had we actually removed Trump from office during impeachment, that would have been huge, right? So that's on McConnell and some of the Republicans in the Senate. But, yes, I think the second-- because I lived it, the second Kevin McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago, the conference went from, like, quiet, what are we going to do, where are we going to go, to begrudgingly defending Donald Trump again. He is responsible. Actually, Donald Trump should consider Kevin McCarthy his best friend, because Donald Trump is alive today politically because of Kevin McCarthy.
Late yesterday, 9 far right Republicans sent this letter to members of the GOP conference telling them that McCarthy’s concessions are still not enough. The signatories are Scott Perry (PA), Paul Gosar (AZ), Chip Roy (TX), Andrew Clyde (GA), Andy Harris (MD), Dan Bishop (NC), Eli Crane (AZ), Anna Paulina Luna (FL) and Andy Ogles (TN).
