It sounds like the Republican party is even more of a mess than we first thought.
According to a new book titled Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind by New York Times Magazine correspondent Robert Draper, Republican leadership is basically being held hostage by some of its newer right-wing members — including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Draper interviewed Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments after reports that she once claimed tragedies like Sandy Hook and 9/11 were a hoax, to get her thoughts on how House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy should restructure the party should things go well in upcoming elections.
‘I think that to be the best speaker of the House and to please the base, he’s going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway,’ she predicted in a flat, unemotional voice. ‘And if he doesn’t, they’re going to be very unhappy about it. I think that’s the best way to read that. And that’s not in any way a threat at all. I just think that’s reality.’
Greene apparently wants a high-profile seat on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees — a pretty big ask for a second-term Congresswoman who’s faced plenty of bad press in the last year. When Draper told Greene as much, she replied, “‘I completely deserve it. I’ve been treated like [expletive]. I have been treated like garbage.’”
And it sounds like McCarthy agrees — or, at the very least, doesn’t want to go against Greene, who’s been amassing a base of QAnon sympathizers and ultra-conservative MAGA supporters. According to Draper’s book, McCarthy told both Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar — another embattled GOP member — that not only would the pair be returned to committee panels, but that they would have “better assignments.” And Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who would likely lead the House Oversight Committee if the GOP comes into power, has been enthusiastic about Greene’s new appointments saying he would “look forward” to members like “Rep. Greene with energy and a strong interest in partnering with us in our efforts to rein in the unaccountable Swamp and to hold the Biden Administration accountable for the many self-inflicted crises that it has unleashed on the American people.”
So cool, not dystopian at all.
(Via Politico)