Free Republic

CNN — House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green barred GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from speaking further in a hearing after she called Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas a “liar” – a stunning example of how Greene’s extreme rhetoric led even members of her own party to shut her down, creating tensions inside the House GOP. Greene, a Georgia Republican, began her time during Wednesday’s hearing by going after Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, who had shown an Instagram photo of her calling to defund the FBI. Greene brought up an incident from several years ago, when...

CNN — House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy has won his party’s nomination for speaker, beating conservative challenger Rep. Andy Biggs in a 188-31 vote, according to multiple sources in the room. It was a secret ballot, and McCarthy only needed a simple majority.

(CNN) House Republicans are plotting revenge on the select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, as the GOP weighs a broader effort to re-litigate some of Donald Trump's biggest election grievances if it recaptures the House majority. The former President has been itching for payback and leaning heavily on his Capitol Hill allies to defend him against a recent slew of damaging revelations about his role in the deadly attack on the US Capitol. Now, as Republicans search for ways to undermine those findings, their party has started to lay the groundwork to investigate the select committee itself. Republicans...

Former President Donald Trump's most loyal allies in Congress have been relegated to the political wilderness for the past few years. Now they're plotting their comeback. With the growing likelihood that Republicans will take over the House after elections this fall -- and the prospect of Trump running for president again in 2024 -- members of the Trump-loving House Freedom Caucus are preparing to flex their muscles in the next era. Under the new leadership of Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the group is hoping to use its hardline tactics, connections to Trump and friendlier relationship with GOP leadership to...

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming called out two members of her party who spoke at an event organized by White nationalist Nick Fuentes. "As Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep Paul Gosar speak at this white supremacist, anti-Semitic, pro-Putin event, silence by Republican Party leaders is deafening and enabling," Cheney tweeted Saturday. "All Americans should renounce this garbage and reject the Putin wing of the GOP now," she added. Greene, a Georgia Republican, spoke at the America First Political Action Committee's conference in Orlando, Florida, on Friday -- an event founded by the far-right activist Fuentes as an alternative...

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday endorsed freshman Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois against another sitting House Republican, bucking the advice of GOP leadership. Shortly after Trump's endorsement, Miller, who was left without a seat after the state's redistricting process, announced she would run in the state's newly drawn 15th District, where GOP Rep. Rodney Davis is seeking reelection. "President Donald Trump inspired me to run in 2020 because our country needs principled conservatives in Congress who always put America First," Miller said in a statement on Saturday. "Today, President Trump is endorsing me because I am a conservative fighter...

Donald Trump's closest Hill allies are privately lobbying the former President to get involved in a Republican-on-Republican matchup in Illinois, a potentially messy scenario that has sparked internal strife in the party and prompted GOP leaders to launch a counter-campaign aimed at keeping Trump on the sidelines. At the center of it all is freshman Rep. Mary Miller, a member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus who has been left without a seat after redistricting. Now she's deciding whether to challenge fellow Illinois Republican Reps. Rodney Davis or Mike Bost. Hoping to boost Miller's political prospects, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene...

@MZanona NEW: Liz Cheney tells me she'd support both censuring Gosar AND stripping him of committees. She also said McCarthy’s inaction on Gosar — especially as Rs call to punish GOPers who supported infrastructure — is "indefensible, morally and ethically, and it's crazy politically.”

Former President Donald Trump has made a show of targeting many of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — in an attempt to replace them with MAGA insurgents. But one new report says that the ranking House Republican has been working behind the scenes against that effort. According to CNN, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has quietly raised $100,000 for five of the 10 members of Congress thought to be in Trump’s crosshairs. McCarthy is said to be concerned that should a far-right candidate win a primary...

CNN - Sen. Rand Paul just got temporarily kicked off YouTube for an inaccurate tirade against masks. Sen. Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, has been airing ads that urge people to go out and get the vaccine. The two Kentucky Republicans now perfectly exemplify the national divide over how to handle a deadly virus that is still ravaging the country -- and they couldn't be more diametrically opposed. McConnell has been one of the most consistent voices in the GOP when it comes to promoting health precautions, while Paul has become the face of the Republican resistance to Covid restrictions. Of course,...

Rep. Liz Cheney has suddenly become one of the most outspoken GOP critics of Donald Trump. Even more surprising: The Wyoming Republican hasn’t faced any serious blowback from the president. Criticizing Trump is not new for Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican. But she has increasingly called out Trump over his foreign policy decisions and leadership during the coronavirus crisis — a risky move in today’s GOP, where any break with Trump can fuel a primary challenge or nasty Twitter tirade from the president. But Cheney’s found a balancing act that few Republicans have been able to achieve. And as...

A band of Democrats who are demanding House rule reforms have yet to reach a deal with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the group announced Friday, putting up a potential roadblock in Pelosi’s quest to reclaim the Speaker’s gavel. Nine Democrats on the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus have vowed to withhold their votes for Speaker unless the candidate agrees to overhaul the House rules. Pelosi, who has been open to such changes, met with the group last week and promised to put in writing the changes to which she would commit. But the Democrats say they have yet to receive...

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said Wednesday that a congresswoman besides Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should be the House Speaker. “There’s plenty of really competent females that we can replace her with,” Ryan told reporters, before listing people such as Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) as potential candidates, The New York Times reported Thursday. His comments come as the battle for Democratic leadership in the House intensifies. Pelosi, who held the Speaker position from 2007 to 2011, expressed confidence on Thursday that she had enough support to be voted into the role. But many lawmakers are insistent about the idea of having...

Rep. Marcia Fudge is in a serious bind as she faces mounting pressure to challenge Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the Speaker’s gavel — a move that could divide the Ohio Democrat's allegiances between the insurgency she supports and the Black Caucus she once led. A group of anti-Pelosi insurgents has been ramping up efforts to recruit Fudge, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), amid criticism that the majority-male cohort is trying to oust the top-ranking female Democrat in the “Year of the Woman.” Pelosi allies have been deriding the rebels as “five white guys,” a...

After nine months of empty promises to help young undocumented immigrants, House Republicans are facing a make-or-break moment on Thursday.Retiring Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will pitch a long-awaited compromise immigration plan to rank-and-file Republicans in the Capitol basement. The meeting is one of the biggest of the Congress for House Republicans, and it could get heated. The immigration discussion represents a last-ditch effort to head off a nasty intraparty, election-year clash that leaders have warned could determine whether the GOP keeps control of the House in November. But it may be too little, too late. Even some Ryan allies are...