“At this point, not knowing the size of the potential majority, leadership is about keeping all the frogs in the wheelbarrow, even if some of the frogs are pretty ugly,” says a former GOP leadership aide who estimates there are about a dozen members of the “real cray cray.” Depending on how many they gain, McCarthy is likely to need the support of even some of the party’s most extreme members. There are currently 208 Republicans in the chamber, and election handicappers project the party will win another 15 to 20 seats. But to win that position, McCarthy will need the backing of 218 of his colleagues. Most political observers expect Republicans to win the House in November, putting McCarthy in line to be the next Speaker. (Gaetz boasts that a rally he headlined last year for Harriet Hageman, a primary opponent of Representative Liz Cheney, was at that time “the largest political event in Wyoming history without a rodeo element.”)
Now, with the primary season in full swing across the country, they’re looking to pad their numbers, recruiting like-minded firebrands in red districts, endorsing and campaigning for fellow insurgents in intra-party contests, and even, in some cases, campaigning against their own colleagues.
But in fact, the MAGA Squad has been cannily building leverage and clout in the halls of Congress. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has described Greene’s “loony lies and conspiracy theories” as a “cancer for the Republican Party.” Not that the MAGA Squad care what the GOP Establishment thinks: Back before Twitter permanently banned her for spreading Covid misinformation, Greene shared a tweet calling Kevin McCarthy-the leader of her own party in the House-a “feckless c-nt.”ĭemocrats and many Republicans deride the group as gadflies, irrelevant to the serious business of lawmaking. To Republicans trying to convince voters to hand them power this November by seeming sensible, sober and interested in governing, they’re a constant headache and distraction. There have long been rabble-rousing right-wingers in Congress, but this group makes the Freedom Caucus seem tame. 6 Committee, which is also investigating Representative Barry Loudermilk for leading what some have called a “reconnaissance” tour of the closed Capitol on Jan. Several members have been subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot, and Mo Brooks of Alabama, who spoke at the rally.
There’s Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who allegedly helped plan the Jan. The group includes freshmen members like Lauren Boebert, who accused a Muslim colleague of being a member of the “Jihad Squad,” as well as longer-serving representatives like Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who pushed Trump’s Department of Justice to throw out electoral votes after the 2020 election, and Paul Gosar of Arizona, who has extensive ties to white nationalists and once posted an animated video showing him murdering Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword. Madison Cawthorn, who lost his North Carolina primary after scandals ranging from insider-trading allegations to lewd videos. The MAGA Squad, as you might call them, is not a formal caucus, but its numbers are growing-despite the impending departure of one prominent member, Rep. Gaetz and Greene are the ringleaders of the GOP’s most hard-core, pro-Trump congressional faction.