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Elise Stefanik Busted Deleting Tweet Where She Slammed Capitol Rioters — Rioters She Now Calls ‘Hostages’

The internet is forever.

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New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who took over as House chair after Liz Cheney was ousted from the position, looks like she’s jockeying for higher office.

That comes as no surprise.

Trump has been relatively open about wanting to pick a woman as a running mate. And Stefanik mostly has the conservative street cred. All but one little thing.

Back in 2021, Stefanik put out a press release condemning the actions of the insurrectionists at the Capitol on January 6 of that year. Her predecessor as chair, Ms. Cheney, has now branded her a “total crackpot.”

Their feud makes sense — Cheney, as an old-school Republican, has to feel like she’s taking crazy pills most of the time when it comes to her Party these days. So a little camaraderie between Republicans over the riots of that day, and seeing the senselessness and brutality of the attacks on the building, the grounds, and even the police, must have felt like a little bit of normal to Cheney.

Now Stefanik has deleted that press release.

That’s right, she’s UN-condemning the bad guys, and even downplaying the events of that day entirely. That’s because she’s on Trump’s shortlist, and she wants that spot on the ticket.

From a report in Politico:

“The caustic personal spat exposed how raw and angry the wounds of Jan. 6 remain within the Republican Party. Few lawmakers embody the political consequences of that day more than Cheney, who lost her role in House leadership after voting to impeach Trump, and Stefanik, who replaced Cheney in that role and gained ever greater prominence as a Trump defender.

The two were both previously seen as next-generation leaders of the Republican establishment, before diverging in their views of Trump. Cheney has recently vowed to do anything she can to stop Trump’s return to the White House, while Stefanik is widely seen as campaigning to become Trump’s running mate.

…

Republican pollster Christine Matthews described the unfolding fight as “the story of two women: one who put principles above ambition and the other who put ambition above principles.”

“It is also the story of the evolution of the Republican Party, which once used issues as a litmus test for who was inside and who was outside the norm. Now it uses pitch — whoever matches their pitch to Trump most closely is the person who belongs inside the party,” Matthews continued, pointing to Stefanik’s shift to the party’s hard right flank over time, both in style and substance.”

I wonder if Stefanik does get the nod if she’ll time her sips of water to match Trump’s like Pence did.

Andrew Simpson
meet the author

Andrew is a dark blue speck in deep red Central Washington, writing with the conviction of 18 years at the keyboard and too much politics to even stand. When not furiously stabbing the keys on breaking news stories, he writes poetry, prose, essays, haiku, lectures, stories for grief therapy, wedding ceremonies, detailed instructions on making doughnuts from canned biscuit dough (more sugar than cinnamon — duh), and equations to determine the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. A girlfriend, a dog, two cats, and two birds round out the equation, and in his spare time, Drewbear likes to imagine what it must be like to have spare time.

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