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WHEN THE MEDIA CAN’T MOVE ON. Republicans on Capitol Hill are alarmed, to say the least, by the agenda proposed by President Joe Biden and Democrats. That is why so many GOP lawmakers are eager to move beyond replaying the 2020 election and get down to the business of stopping Biden’s plans to — in the GOP view — recklessly spend trillions of dollars, wreck the economy, declare open borders, worsen the racial divide, and mishandle a tense Middle East, not to mention pack the Supreme Court and make Washington DC a state.
That’s one reason House Republicans ousted Representative Liz Cheney from the party leadership. She insisted that Republicans must attack former President Donald Trump and his claim that the election was rigged before they could move on to pursuing their own agenda. Trump first — then everything else.
But Cheney and her relatively small group of allies need help in enforcing a Trump-first rule. That’s where the the media come in. Just look at what happened when Republican Representative Dan Crenshaw, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” tried to explain his constituents’ concerns.
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When moderator Chuck Todd asked about Trump and Cheney, Crenshaw said he supported the House Republican decision. And then he said, “I’ve got to tell you, this is not the subject that I’m asked about.” He continued:
I get asked a lot of questions. I’m always doing events. I’m always meeting with people. I never get asked about this. I get asked about — why is there rising inflation? Why is there a border crisis? What is going on in the Middle East? Why can’t we get gas? What is happening to our energy infrastructure? Why can’t I hire people? Why are they getting paid by the government to stay home instead of come to work? These are things that really affect people, not this internal drama. And one of the reasons I agreed to come on your show is basically to say that this isn’t that important to people.
That was a pretty succinct summation of public concerns, especially among Republican voters. But Todd would have none of it. Here is his response to Crenshaw’s statement: “Why should anybody believe a word you say if the Republican Party doesn’t have credibility?” And then: “Do any of your critiques come across as credible if you can’t accept the fundamental fact that our democracy held a free and fair election?”
Crenshaw patiently explained that, while he did sign on to the Texas lawsuit challenging some states’ election rules that was rejected by the Supreme Court, he did not agree with the efforts of some Republicans to challenge the certification of Electoral College results in the House. “I did not vote to object,” Crenshaw said. “I voted to certify.”
It wasn’t enough. Todd kept the interview focused on Trump, Cheney, and the election, apparently because he did not believe Crenshaw had enough credibility to discuss things like the economy and the border. And here’s the kicker, which would be funny if it weren’t such a depressing picture of how the media works. The Washington Post, writing about Crenshaw’s appearance, said the Todd-Crenshaw exchange “offers vivid evidence of the challenge Republicans face in shifting the conversation from Trump’s election lies…”
Well, why is that? Crenshaw could not shift the conversation to voter concerns, no matter how important, because the moderator of “Meet the Press” would not allow it. Liz Cheney dominated the news for days and days and days because the people who write and broadcast the news saw it as the most important thing happening in the world at that time. And by the way, so did Trump. The interests of the former president, who takes every opportunity to claim that the election was stolen, and of many in the media, who are clearly having a difficult time moving on from the Trump years, are in a state of near-perfect alignment.
As Crenshaw sees it, that leaves the voters out of the conversation. “They’re issued-focused,” he told me in a text exchange Monday. “Border, woke ideology, hiring problems, etc. Election integrity is certainly still a priority for GOP voters as well, but the press tries to conflate that very rational concern with ‘insurrection.'”
The bottom line is, some influential voices in the media agree with Cheney that Republicans should not be able to discuss issues — cannot be believed on issues — until they banish Trump. It’s not enough to ignore him. It’s not enough to focus on what is happening now. Republicans can say it’s a new world, there’s a new president, there are many pressing issues that need to be debated. But for now, no matter the efforts of GOP lawmakers like Crenshaw, for some in the press, it’s still Trump, Trump, Trump.
For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show — available on the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found. You can use this link to subscribe.
