© Provided by Washington Examiner A looming leadership fight in the House is only partly over whether Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming will remain Republican conference chairwoman. The larger issue is a debate over how the GOP should handle former President Donald Trump going forward.
One faction of congressional Republicans, in line with the party's rank-and-file voters according to most polls, would like to embrace Trump. That means defending his record, celebrating his term in the White House, and lifting him up as a party icon alongside Ronald Reagan - perhaps even to the point of supporting him for president again in 2024.
This group ranges from populist relative newcomers such as Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and embattled Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to such ascendant lawmakers as Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who has increasingly aligned with Trump and hired veterans from both his campaign and White House - for which she may be rewarded with Cheney's leadership post.
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Another set of Republicans believes it is important to disassociate the party from Trump and disavow his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, especially after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Cheney is the most prominent proponent of this strategy, arguing Trump should not be considered a party leader going forward and should never be president again. Even if she is stripped of her conference chairwoman role as a result, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois will hold to this line.
"Liz Cheney refuses to lie," Utah Sen. Mitt Romney tweeted in support of the Wyoming lawmaker. "As one of my Republican Senate colleagues said to me following my impeachment vote: I wouldn't want to be a member of a group that punished someone for following their conscience."
A third group would like to move past discussion of Trump where possible and focus on winning majorities in Congress, which, despite Jan. 6, Republicans remain well positioned to do. The Senate is split 50-50, and the House - where the party outside the White House frequently makes big gains in the midterm elections, especially in the first such contests under the last two Democratic presidents - is in Democratic hands by just five votes.
These Republicans are split on how much influence Trump should have going forward. Some, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, would prefer to remain as silent about the former president as possible. Others, like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, are happy to enlist Trump's help in winning seats next year. But they are united in wanting the conversation trained on 2022 rather than the past.
It is this group that has turned against Cheney since she survived a February attempt by MAGA conservatives to purge her from the leadership for voting, with nine other House Republicans, to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol riot. The belief is that her continued pronouncements about Trump have detracted from the party's messaging early in President Joe Biden's term.
Biden, for his part, seemed bewildered by the Republican infighting. "I don't understand the Republicans," he said on Wednesday. He later added in response to a reporter's question, "I think the Republicans are further away from trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for than I thought they would be at this point."
"Constantly talking about Trump is only going to delay us from doing what we need to do," said a Republican strategist. "Whether it is MAGA or Liz Cheney doing the talking."
Trump himself has not been silent, weighing in Wednesday on both the leadership race and Facebook's ruling that he should remain banned from the popular social media platform. "Warmonger Liz Cheney, who has virtually no support left in the Great State of Wyoming, continues to unknowingly and foolishly say that there was no Election Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election when in fact, the evidence, including no Legislative approvals as demanded by the U.S. Constitution, shows the exact opposite," he said in a statement.
Trump endorsed Stefanik to replace Cheney in leadership and zinged McConnell, and to a lesser extent former Vice President Mike Pence, for not following through with his claims about the 2020 election.
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A recent national CNN poll found that six months after the election and over 100 days into Biden's presidency, 7 in 10 Republicans question whether the Democrat really won fairly. A Monmouth poll found that 65% of Republican voters attributed Biden's win to voter fraud. But an NBC News poll concluded that for the first time in nearly two years, more Republicans said they supported the party itself at 50% more than Trump himself at 44%.
"Republicans are going to keep struggling with whether they want [Trump] involved in the party," said a second GOP strategist.
Tags: News, Donald Trump, Liz Cheney, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Republican Party
Original Author: W. James Antle III
Original Location: Liz Cheney and the three Republican strategies for dealing with Trump