‘The Party is On Fire’: Jim VandeHei Says Republicans Have to ‘Act Crazy, Tolerate Crazy, Be Crazy or Get Crushed’
House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy visited former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, signaling a clear strategy for the Republican Party over the next two years: Trump will play a lead role in the run-up to the 2022 midterms.
Axios founder and CEO Jim VandeHei put the internal struggles of the Republican House caucus in stark relief during a Friday appearance on Morning Joe. He said flatly of the GOP: “the party is on fire right now!” Vandehei is a well-sourced and respected inside-the-beltway resource and has a well-earned reputation for sharing fair and nonpartisan details from his voluminous Rolodex (or Contacts app.)
The context of his comments came as GOP leadership in the House struggles with newly elected QAnon conspiracist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as a number of inflammatory social media posts have come to light. VandeHei connected her conspiracy theories and Trumpian non-stop attack mode of political discourse to why Senator Rob Portman announced his Senate retirement.
“Why did John Boehner leave?” he asked. “Why does Kevin McCarthy think he has the worst job in American politics? It’s hard when all the rank and file members believe some of this stuff.”
Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough interjected to ask, “are you saying that the QAnon base has spread — has become so widespread that that now is the Republican base?”
VandeHei cited the current political situation in Wyoming where “a big chunk of the base might not believe QAnon, but they believe a lot of these conspiracy theories,” adding, “there are more of those people than there are Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney Republicans.” In a stunning intraparty political move, Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz visited the state of Wyoming to campaign against Cheney, who voted to impeach the former president.
The Gaetz-Cheney battle is symptomatic of the current civil war raging inside the Republican Party, which VandeHei noted. Liz Cheney has become the voice of establishment Republicans in the GOP House caucus and is up to be elected number three Republican in House leadership. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a vote and it’s a secret ballot, and they oust her,” VandeHei explained.
“The party is on fire right now,” he added, dismissing the idea that the party of “Liz Cheney, or Dick Cheney, or George Bush, or Paul Ryan, or Mitt Romney faction,” has any juice in DC at the moment.
“Why did Rob Portman say I’m getting out of town? Why? Because he’s a serious guy that wants to legislate and do what you say you want to have done, and he looks around and says, ‘I don’t see anyone who wants to what I want to do. ‘And if I run, I have to either act crazy, tolerate crazy, be crazy, or get crushed,” explaining this as the calculation that so many of these members have to make.
“I’m not defending it, I’m just telling you that’s the reality that they see,” VandeHei concluded, adding “and if the Republican party doesn’t straighten it out,” there won’t be a GOP majority.
Watch above via MSNBC.
