While McCarthy shrugs…DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos Calls on the Minority Leader to Cut Off Support to QAnon Candidates in RNC Convention Speech
As Republicans conclude their convention today peddling a dangerous dystopian message and deadly disinformation about COVID-19, they will all but explicitly adopt a fringe conspiracy movement deemed by the FBI to be a domestic terrorist threat into their party’s tent.
This morning, DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos called on McCarthy to use his primetime convention speech to publicly reject QAnon and cut financial help for candidates tied with the movement. However, McCarthy and NRCC Chair Emmer have both continued to offer political and financial support to QAnon-linked candidates.
President Trump is scheduled to accept the nomination tonight during primetime with Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene looking on from the front row. When that happens, the party of drinking bleach and taking hydroxychloroquine will also be known as the party that allowed conspiracy theorists linked with perpetuating murder, attempted kidnapping, and domestic terrorism into the halls of Congress.
Actions speak louder than words.
Just to recap…
Two recent House primary victories have given the fringe QAnon movement, a network of conspiracy theorists and extremists, a potential gateway to mainstream politics. President Trump was already aware of QAnon, though, as he indicated in late August…
Mr. Trump’s views are far less clear. Greene said Tuesday she was invited to the White House to attend his Republican National Convention speech on Thursday, and Colorado House candidate Lauren Boebert said she was invited too…
“They took it as validation,” he told CBS News, pointing to Trump’s history of retweeting accounts that support QAnon. He noted that one prominent QAnon figure posted that “Q” has been “absorbed into MAGA.”
[…]At least 19 House Republican candidates who support or have elevated the QAnon movement will be on the November ballot, according to tracking by Media Matters…
Greene, a small business owner and candidate in Georgia’s 14th District, had previously posted on social media in support of the movement, using its catchphrases and calling its leader, “Q,” a “patriot” who’s “worth listening to…
In May, Boebert appeared on an online show hosted by a QAnon supporter… “Everything that I’ve heard of Q, I hope that this is real because it only means that America is getting stronger and better, and people are returning to conservative values,” she said…
Molly McKew, who independently researches and writes about disinformation, compared the Republican response to QAnon to Mr. Trump’s declining to disavow an endorsement by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke during his 2016 campaign…
“You just kind of keep [groups like QAnon] at enough of an arm’s length, that you get their support because they’ve got nowhere else to go,” she said. “But you’re not like embracing them and putting them on the parade float.”
[…]In Utah, Burgess Owens, a Republican nominee in a battleground district, was attacked by Democrats for appearing on a show affiliated with the movement. A former Republican state legislator called on the Republican National Committee to remove Owens from his speaking slot at this week’s convention….
Congressman Cheri Bustos, Chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Washington Republican leaders “are legitimizing this dangerous conspiracy– giving QAnon a platform by offering QAnon-aligned candidates RNC Convention speaking slots, House committee assignments, and financial support for their campaigns.”
National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer was asked by The Hill if the committee will support Greene or Laura Loomer, a far-right Republican candidate running in a safely Democratic Florida district that includes Mar-a-Lago…”the conversations that we’ve had basically are congratulations and let us know how we can be of assistance.”
“If Kevin McCarthy is truly the leader of his [conference], he would stop paying lip service and use his RNC speech—and his wallet—to stop the dangerous movement of QAnon from creeping into the halls of Congress,” Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told Newsweek…
Bustos said that McCarthy needs to “stop winking and nodding at this dangerous conspiracy movement and speak up the way he should, as any leader should.”
[…]”This is probably the biggest national audience Kevin McCarthy has ever been in front of,” Bustos said. “If he’s saying he’s denouncing QAnon and then doing all these endorsements of these candidates who will bring these conspiracy theories into the sacred halls of Congress, he owes the American people to speak out against it.”
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