On Saturday morning, as Americans learned that Donald Trump had deployed U.S. forces to bomb Venezuela and capture Nicolás Maduro, the president’s Republican allies in Congress did what they always do: They played the role of partisan cheerleaders.
In one especially memorable instance, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer appeared on Fox News and said: “God bless this president of peace, Donald J. Trump.” What the Minnesota congressman might not have realized, however, was that during his on-air appearance, he was part of a split-screen: On the left, viewers saw Emmer; on the right, they saw American bombs dropping on Venezuela.
It made the GOP leader’s “president of peace” comment rather ironic. Emmer nevertheless appeared on Fox Business a day later and pushed a nearly identical line.
“Donald Trump is the president of peace, and what he’s doing is stabilizing the region,” Emmer said with a straight face.
Maybe he was referring to some other Donald Trump?
Broadly speaking, there are a few angles to this. The first is the importance of the president’s actual record. The day after Trump’s deadly military operation in Venezuela, he spoke with reporters and threatened Colombia, Mexico, Iran, Greenland and Cuba.
This came on the heels of Trump approving a strike in Nigeria the day after Christmas.
It helped wrap up a year in which the Republican administration also launched preemptive military strikes on targets in Iran, initiated a bombing campaign in Yemen, targeted the Islamic State group in Syria, struck Islamic State targets in Somalia and launched dozens of deadly strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
A variety of phrases come to mind, but “the president of peace” isn’t one of them.
Second, if Emmer believes the administration is “stabilizing the region,” he has reality backward. Indeed, there’s ongoing political turmoil in Venezuela, amid ongoing questions as to who, exactly, is currently leading the country.
Finally, it’s also worth emphasizing that Emmer was supposed to be above such nonsense. This might seem like ancient history, but it was in October 2023 when he secured the votes he needed to become the next speaker of the House. Just two hours after his intraparty victory, however, Trump issued a public condemnation of the the Minnesota Republican, labeling him “a Globalist RINO” who was “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters.”
Emmer had reached out to Trump directly ahead of the conference vote to make his case and apparently said he was Trump’s “biggest fan.” The lobbying did not have the intended effect: Trump trashed the GOP lawmaker anyway, in large part because Emmer did not vote to overturn the 2020 election. A mere four hours after Emmer became the speaker-designate, he became the former speaker-designate as part of an unprecedented turn of events. As the dust settled, Trump gloated about having taken down Emmer. “He’s done. It’s over,” the then-former president reportedly said in reference to the House majority whip. “I killed him.” It was roughly at this point that Emmer had a decision to make. He could position himself as a principled congressman, someone who was able to maintain professional relationships with members of both parties — but that would put his career in Republican politics in jeopardy. After all, along that same path lie the careers of former lawmakers such as Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney. And so Emmer made a different choice. He held a fundraiser for Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He agreed to serve as the Minnesota state chairman of Trump’s 2024 campaign. He transformed into yet another tiresome partisan who peddles ridiculous talking points and helps lead smear campaigns against political opponents. Emmer’s far-right transformation may very likely protect him from any kind of MAGA backlash. But the congressman’s reputation as a credible figure on Capitol Hill is clearly gone forever, and his indifference to this development speaks volumes about the contemporary GOP. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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