{"id":1030403,"date":"2024-03-29T18:20:43","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T18:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/?p=1030403"},"modified":"2024-05-21T17:48:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T17:48:30","slug":"maga-malarkey-the-extremism-you-missed-from-republicans-this-week-37","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/maga-malarkey-the-extremism-you-missed-from-republicans-this-week-37\/","title":{"rendered":"MAGA Malarkey: The Extremism You Missed From Republicans This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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MAGA Republicans stooped to new lows this week with their extremism, hypocrisy, chaos, and \u2014 as President Biden would call it \u2014 malarkey. In case you missed it: Donald Trump is bringing back crooks, cranks, and convicts to help his campaign; the RNC is asking potential staffers to prove their loyalty to Trump by denying the 2020 election results; the RNC\u2019s disastrous fundraising is even worse than we thought; the RNC\u2019s swing state battleground offices are in complete disarray; the Republican Study Committee is backing Trump\u2019s plans to slash funding for law enforcement; MAGA Mike Johnson wanted to threaten access to telemedicine and abortion medication; and Republicans lost a Trump-won Alabama state House seat in a campaign that was heavily focused on reproductive freedom.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re getting the band back together: With Paul Manafort, Corey Lewandowski, and Roger Stone tapped for key campaign roles, Trump\u2019s crew of crooks, cranks, and convicts are once again joining forces. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian<\/a>: \u201cHeadache for campaign team as Trump gets the band back together\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPaul Manafort, a veteran political consultant, could return as a campaign adviser later this year, according to the Washington Post newspaper. \u2026 Trump pardoned Manafort in 2020, seven months after he was released to home confinement, sparing the Republican operative from serving the bulk of his seven-and-a-half-year prison term for federal tax evasion and bank fraud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMeanwhile the New York Times reported that Corey Lewandowski, Trump\u2019s first campaign manager in 2016, could also play a role at the convention. Lewandowski was ousted from a pro-Trump political action committee in 2021 after a major donor\u2019s wife accused him of inappropriate behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMeanwhile Roger Stone, a self-proclaimed dirty trickster who has been a friend and ally of Trump for 30 years, still speaks to him occasionally and was spotted at the Super Tuesday victory party at Mar-a-Lago. Stone was convicted of obstructing a congressional investigation into Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign and sentenced to 40 months in prison before the then president commuted the sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those looking for a job at the RNC are facing a new litmus test: belief in the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Washington Post<\/a>: \u201cWas the 2020 election stolen? Job interviews at RNC take an unusual turn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose seeking employment at the Republican National Committee after a Donald Trump-backed purge of the committee this month have been asked in job interviews if they believe the 2020 election was stolen, according to people familiar with the interviews, making the false claim a litmus test of sorts for hiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe query about the 2020 election startled some of the potential employees, who viewed it as questioning their loyalty to Trump and as an unusual job interview question, according to the people familiar with the interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe questions about the 2020 election were open-ended, two people familiar with the questioning said. \u2018But if you say the election wasn\u2019t stolen, do you really think you\u2019re going to get hired?\u2019 one former RNC employee asked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrump installed Michael Whatley, a loyalist from North Carolina, as the chairman of the party, along with daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair. Trump has falsely maintained that the election was stolen since 2020 and has often endorsed candidates based on agreement with that belief. He is facing charges in federal court in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome Trump advisers have urged him for years to stop talking about the election, but he has largely resisted those entreaties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The RNC fundraising hole is far deeper than it looks, with millions of dollars \u201cunusable for political spending.\u201d <\/strong>
<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daily Beast<\/a>: \u201cThe RNC\u2019s Fundraising Hole Is Even Deeper Than It Looks\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of the RNC\u2019s recent fundraising\u2014millions of dollars of it\u2014is unusable for political spending. Instead, that money can only support a limited range of activities. (As luck would have it, much of that money can be spent on Donald Trump\u2019s legal bills, potentially even to help pay down the judgments against him.)\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Daily Beast\u2019s analysis of Federal Election Commission filings found that, of the roughly $22.3 million that the RNC has reported raising this year, more than $8 million of it\u2014about 36 percent\u2014cannot be used for political expenses. (At this same point in 2020, the money in the RNC\u2019s Cromnibus accounts accounted for less than 10 percent\u2014$7.5 million\u2014of the total $77 million cash on hand.)\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe party is navigating a cash crunch brought on by a combination of poor fundraising and heavy spending, while facing the prospect of devoting major resources to help shore up down-ballot candidates, financially troubled state parties, and its presidential nominee, Trump\u2014who himself faces a fundraising crisis after siphoning tens of millions of dollars from supporters to fund his snowballing personal legal bills.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After laying off key staff and threatening to close community outreach centers, the RNC is now scrambling to fundraise and hire qualified staffers at state headquarters in battleground states. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Axios<\/a>: \u201cTrump’s RNC struggles in swing states as Biden’s team grows\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Trump-led Republican National Committee is scrambling to boost staffs and give loyalty tests in seven battleground states at a time when several GOP state parties are plagued by dysfunction and disarray.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLess than eight months before the Nov. 5 election, significant parts of the RNC’s get-out-the-vote operation in states likely to decide the election are playing catch-up after Trump’s team ousted 60 staffers in its recent takeover.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn [job] interviews, Trump’s team has asked some candidates whether they believe the 2020 election was stolen, the Washington Post first reported.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrump’s RNC initially cut the party’s community centers for minority voters and a program to encourage early voting, but reinstated them after a backlash within the party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany Republicans fear the RNC upheaval \u2014 and unrelated chaos in state parties, particularly in swing states Michigan and Arizona \u2014 is a setback for a party that for years has tried to get more volunteers to recruit support in their neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Axios<\/a>: \u201cThe AZGOP is selling the headquarters it bought 9 months ago\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThe big picture: The AZGOP has been plagued by dysfunction and poor fundraising over the past few years, just as it attempts to fight back against recent Democratic political gains.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Republican Study Committee\u2019s extreme proposed budget would slash funding for law enforcement and make our communities less safe.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republican Study Committee FY 2025 Budget Proposal<\/a>: \u201cCOPS was created in the 1990s as a means to support state and local law enforcement agencies with expenses like salaries, court programs, and juvenile justice programs. \u2026 the RSC Budget would support a reduction to this program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CNN<\/a>: \u201cSome lawmakers on the far right such as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Matt Gaetz of Florida and Paul Gosar of Arizona, have carried Trump\u2019s mantel in calling for a full defund of the FBI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sahil Kapur, NBC News<\/a>: \u201cDonald Trump pressures Republicans to defund the (federal) police.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan Allen, NBC News<\/a>: \u201cWhen Trump was president, he proposed slashing federal funding for local police forces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an unearthed 2020 rant, MAGA Mike Johnson railed against access to medication abortion and telemedicine that provides women with necessary reproductive health care.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson<\/a>: \u201cOne of the things we’re trying to be on the lookout for is the rise, the use of chemical abortions because there\u2019s this move towards telemedicine and off-site medical treatment and that kind of thing. So there will be a push and, you know, <\/strong>the other side will say, \u2018This is very compassionate, what about the evolving nature of medicine, we need to be able to treat people remotely, and so we\u2019ll just mail them a chemical that will induce the abortion\u2019 \u2014 a pill or syringe or whatever it is. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to be very vigilant about that, the states are going to have to ramp up regulation of off-site medical treatment \u2014 and those are good innovations because it helps a lot of people when you\u2019re talking about true medical help. But in the abortion industry, Planned Parenthood and the abortion cartels are going to try their best to maximize profits with that of course, because they always put profit over people. And we\u2019ve got to be watching for that, that\u2019s going to be one of these new emerging areas, I think, as telemedicine takes off and becomes more common and more prevalent. <\/strong>So particularly out in the rural areas, you know, it\u2019s going to be a big thing to watch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo we\u2019ll have some legislation to try and address that as well, but again, I keep coming back to the same issue that, you know, it really comes down to the election if \u2026 the pro-abortion Democrats are allowed to maintain control of the House, we\u2019re kind of stuck on go because we can\u2019t move this important legislation. And they\u2019re never going to allow it in any of the larger bills. So we got to be really active and engaged in this cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans lost a state House seat in an Alabama district that Trump won in 2020 by an unexpectedly large margin due to their cruel, unpopular support abortion bans and threats to IVF access. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York Times<\/a>: \u201cDemocrat Running on Abortion and I.V.F. Access Wins Special Election in Alabama\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Semafor<\/a>: \u201cThe Alabama Democrat flipped a seat in Trump country\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocrats triumphed in yet another special election focused on abortion rights Tuesday night, when Alabama\u2019s Marilyn Lands flipped a Republican state House seat in an unexpectedly lopsided vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocrats keep over-performing in post-Dobbs special elections, especially when they\u2019re held in suburbs \u2014 any suburbs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NBC<\/a>: \u201cDemocratic candidate Marilyn Lands on Tuesday won a special election for a state House seat in Alabama after she made in vitro fertilization and abortion rights central to her campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLands had 63% of the vote to Powell’s 37% with all precincts reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MAGA Republicans stooped to new lows this week with their extremism, hypocrisy, chaos, and \u2014 as President Biden would call it \u2014 malarkey. In case you missed it: Donald Trump is bringing back crooks, cranks, and convicts to help his campaign; the RNC is asking potential staffers to prove their loyalty to Trump by denying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1030403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMAGA Malarkey: The Extremism You Missed From Republicans This Week - Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/maga-malarkey-the-extremism-you-missed-from-republicans-this-week-37\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-03-29T18:20:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-21T17:48:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/MAGA-Malarkey.png?w=745\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/maga-malarkey-the-extremism-you-missed-from-republicans-this-week-37\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/maga-malarkey-the-extremism-you-missed-from-republicans-this-week-37\/\",\"name\":\"MAGA Malarkey: The Extremism You Missed From Republicans This Week - 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