Elise Stefanik: Shameless, Shrewd and Determined to Rise
Elise Stefanik: Shameless, Shrewd and Determined to Rise
Published |Updated
Albert R. Hunt
House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) speaks to reporters at a press conference following a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol Building on July 18, 2023 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
It’s ludicrous, laughable, that Donald Trump was sent by God to lead America, as his Truth Social posts suggest, or that — unlike Abraham Lincoln — he could have negotiated a deal to avoid the Civil War.
Arguably more preposterous is the claim of Trump and his followers that the January 6 mob assault on the Capitol was actually a peaceful demonstration and the rioters are the victims. Most of us saw, in real time, the Trump-inspired gang in the worst assault on the Capitol since the British burned it down in 1814.
This was affirmed by the January 6 committee, in depth documentaries, the confessions of some insurrectionists who said they were egged on by the president, and the conviction of many rioters.
It is attested to by top Trump officials, starting with former Vice President Mike Pence, whose life was threatened because he wouldn’t violate his oath and rig the perfunctory count of the electoral college at Trump’s behest. ABC reported that some of Trump’s closest White House aides told the special counsel that the president had no intention that day of stopping the attack: He apparently wanted the siege to succeed in overturning the legitimate election.
We all know by now Trump’s disregard for truth, so last weekend I watched one of his smarter loyalists, Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), on “Meet the Press.” The New York congresswoman is a stranger to principle — in a nanosecond she switched from leading the small band of moderate House Republicans to a down-the-line Jim Jordan-style (R-Ohio) cheerleader for Trump. But she’s very shrewd.
Her appearance was a triumph of Trumpism, with a little less craziness, suggesting a stolen election, that the January 6 mob are “hostages,” that President Biden is the most corrupt president ever, as is his Justice Department, that many Democrats are antisemitic, and blah, blah, blah …
2020 wasn’t a “fair election,” Stefanik claims, a demonstrable falsehood. She focuses on Pennsylvania, which she charges engaged in “unconstitutional overreach” when that state’s supreme court, in response to COVID and postal snafus, ruled that mail-in ballots could arrive and be counted several days after the election.
What she didn’t say is that, by order of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, those ballots were segregated from the rest. There were 10,000 of them. Biden won the state by more than 80,000.
Stefanik echoed Trump’s criticism that the January 6 insurrectionists are being treated like “hostages.” Hostages are the 160 men and women still being held by Hamas, or Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich held by Putin’s Russia, or another journalist, Austin Tice, who has been held captive by the Syrian regime more than 11 years.
It is contemptible to equate these victims with the Trump-inspired mob trying to overturn the legitimate election where seven people died and hundreds of police were injured as they tried to fend off the mob breaking into the Capitol. Already, approximately 900 perpetrators have been convicted or have pleaded guilty. (Trump has said as president he would pardon them.)
Stefanik, who in a congressional hearing eviscerated three ill-prepared presidents of elite universities on antisemitism on the campus, has seized on that success, using every opportunity to assail Democrats, charging that antisemitism is “an issue on the left.” I can’t find, however, any Stefanik criticism of Trump for dining a little over a year ago with Nick Fuentes, an antisemitic Holocaust denier. Maybe that’s because she’s lobbying hard to be the former president’s running mate. Apparently it does depend on the context.
On “Meet the Press,” Stefanik assailed what she claimed was biased anti-conservative media. That may be, but not in coverage of her broadsides against her alma mater. Very few stories or interviews note that Stefanik’s hatred of her alma mater seems to have begun in 2021 — when she was kicked off a Harvard advisory panel for lying about the 2020 election.
Almost nothing compares to denying there was a January 6 attack on the Capitol or calling those rioters “hostages.” Yet that Big Lie has taken hold with many Americans. In this month’s Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, an astonishing 25% of the public believes the FBI — not the Trump-inspired mob — instigated the attack on the Capitol.
There are legitimate big issues to debate in a presidential year: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Middle East, China, taxes, abortion. But to question the clear legitimacy of the 2020 election or the tragedy of January 6 carnage is to lie outright to voters.
Al Hunt is the former Washington executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. He co-hosts the “Politics War Room” with James Carville. Follow him on Twitter @AlHuntDC