You love to see it
They just don’t know who to blame or who is safe to ally with or throw overboard. It’s delicious:
A handful of Republican National Committee members denounced former President Donald Trump, with one pushing for fellow members and RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to forcefully condemn his decision to host a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with antisemites.
“I am flabbergasted at the lack of outrage from Ronna about this,” Oscar Brock, a national committeeman from Tennessee, wrote in one of a series of private email threads obtained by POLITICO. “I tweeted to her yesterday, asking her to condemn this. We must, as a party, oppose all racism and prejudice, and condemn those who accept and endorse it, which includes inviting neo-nazi’s [sic] to dinner.”
The emails, which were sent to all 168 committee members’ email addresses, offer a rare glimpse at the agitation that is roiling among some in the Republican National Committee at a moment of intense scrutiny of the institution and the party it represents. It also brings to the surface tensions over whether or not McDaniel can or should lead the RNC in this current political climate, with an increasingly undisciplined Trump launching a third presidential run and the party coming to terms with midterm losses that many blame on the former president. McDaniel claims the support of a majority of committee members, but has recently faced challenges for the chair position.
The thread begins with a heartfelt message from committeeman Richard Porter from Illinois on Thanksgiving Day.
“I am sipping my coffee and thinking how thankful I am to be part of an organization dedicated to preserving, protecting and promoting our great nation, the ideals of which were so beautifully expressed by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence,” Porter wrote. “I am so thankful to be working alongside each of you, and each of the other people in our respective states and territories, to stop the hate and defeat the anger.”
But days later, the discussion quickly turned to Trump’s dinner with Ye, the rapper known better as Kanye West, and Nick Fuentes, an avowed white nationalist and Holocaust denier.
“Is it just me or is anyone else struck by the incredible irony that Richard was writing these wonderful words within 48 hours of Donald Trump having dinner with anti-Semite Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, also an anti-Semite and a racist, white nationalist. All Republican leaders need to stand up and denounce Trump’s actions and lack of judgment here,” wrote committeeman Bill Palatucci from New Jersey on November 26.
Palatucci confirmed the authenticity of the email, noting he has long been critical of Trump in public too. In the email thread, his sentiment was echoed by Jay Shepard, a national committeeman from Vermont.
“As individuals and as a party we must not tolerate people like Nick Fuentes and Kanye West,” Shepard wrote. “We should never ever give them a platform for their hatred. Giving them attention only divides us as a nation. No Republican should be associated with them, its [sic] not who we are.”
McDaniel did respond to Trump’s dinner at Mar-a-Lago in a statement that said, “white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican Party.” She later called Kanye’s remarks “abhorrent,” adding, “there is no place for Kanye, Fuentes, or their views inside the Republican Party.”
But she did not mention Trump by name.
At the time, McDaniel was trying to navigate the fallout from the dinner while also managing several major other political projects. She and her team were securing support from the necessary number of RNC committee members to secure a fourth term. The RNC was also helping prop up Herschel Walker’s candidacy during the senate runoff election in Georgia, as private angst mounted that the National Republican Senatorial Committee was not devoting enough funds.
In an email to the same thread of committee members on Nov. 26, David Shafer, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, outlined the challenges that McDaniel faced.
“I feel for Ronna in the sense that I have spent much of my four years as Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party dealing with various requests and demands that I use my platform to denounce other Republicans,” Shafer wrote, and went on to explain to his fellow members how the Georgia runoff “does not grip the national imagination the way it did two years ago because there is no way for us to get to 51.”
On Tuesday, Republicans lost the senate runoff, prompting a follow up email from Shafer the next day.
“Tuesday was a tough day in Georgia. Herschel was massively outspent, maybe 3 to 1 in a four week period of time and still held his own,” wrote Shafer.
It goes on. And on. They are a mess. Lol.