Elise Stefanik is going to 'cringeworthy lengths' to 'impress Team Trump': analysis

09 February 2024

When Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York) was first sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives on January 3, 2015, she was typically described as a "pro-business conservative" along the lines of now-Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) or former New York Gov. George Pataki. And the GOP congresswoman was critical of Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign, arguing that his inflammatory, divisive commentary was bad for the conservative movement.

But Stefanik has since taken a far-right, ultra-MAGA turn and is now a strident Trump loyalist who defends the January 6, 2021 rioters as "hostages." CNN pundit and Never Trump conservative S.E. Cupp has slammed Stefanik as "craven" and "shameless," and MSNBC's Steve Benen is equally scathing in his criticism of her in his February 9 MaddowBlog column.

Stefanik, Benen argues, keeps sinking lower and lower in the hope of becoming Trump's running mate if, as expected, he wins his party's 2024 presidential nomination.

"As Donald Trump and his team start the process of finding a 2024 running mate," Benen observes, "it's not exactly a secret that House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik is under consideration. The former president has admitted as much. With this in mind, the New York congresswoman is going to cringeworthy lengths to impress Team Trump, abandoning any sense of shame."

Benen, a "Rachel Maddow Show" producer, continues, "Stefanik, for example, has echoed the former president's rhetoric about January 6 criminals being 'hostages,' and soon after, the House GOP leader removed her original statement about the January 6 attack — a statement that's no longer consistent with far-right talking points — from her official website. As Stefanik continues to rebrand herself as a radical and reactionary politician, her efforts to impress Team Trump are far from over."

Benen notes that during an interview with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Stefanik said that then-Vice President Mike Pence should not have certified the presidential election results on January 6, 2021.

Benen stresses, however, that Stefanik is hardly the only Republican who is making "bonkers" statements in order to please Trump. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, "If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors."

"What we have, in other words, is a dynamic in which key Republican figures, eager to impress their party's likely nominee, are taking every opportunity to express their wholesale indifference to the rule of law, confident that it will improve their chances of joining their party's national ticket," Benen laments. "What's more, it's early February. The race to the bottom is almost certain to get worse in the coming months, as GOP contenders look for new ways to prove they're even more ridiculous than their intraparty rival."

Steve Benen's full MSNBC column is available at this link.

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