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Outgoing Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney took to Twitter to call out current GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for his silence on former Republican President Donald Trump's recent dinner with avowed White nationalist and antisemitic Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
Fuentes rose to prominence after attending the violent 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and has since become a leader of the so-called "Groyper army."
He helped plan multiple "Stop the Steal" rallies that led to the January 6 coup attempt last year. He recently called for Trump to be installed in a "dictatorship" to "force the people to believe what we believe" after this year's midterms and for elections to then be abolished.
Presumably to that end, he and Trump dined together along with rapper Ye just before Thanksgiving following the former President's announcement of his 2024 campaign launch in a new level of open commitment to virulently racist and antisemitic fascism by the former Republican President.
Most Republicans declined to speak out about the meeting. For his part, Trump claimed he did not know who Fuentes was prior to the dinner even if no one is buying Trump's story.
In a tweet posted this morning, Cheney referred to Fuentes as a "neo-Nazi" and excoriated McCarthy for staying silent on the matter.
\u201cHey @GOPLeader - where is your condemnation of Donald Trump for meeting with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, the pro-Putin leader of the America First Political Action Conference? I know you want to be Speaker, but are you willing to be completely amoral?\u201d— Liz Cheney (@Liz Cheney) 1669729254
Tagging McCarthy's Twitter account, Cheney wrote:
"Hey @GOPLeader—where is your condemnation of Donald Trump for meeting with neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, the pro-Putin leader of the America First Political Action Conference?"
"I know you want to be Speaker, but are you willing to be completely amoral?"
McCarthy's silence also constitutes a 180 reversal on his previous position on the America First Political Action Conference and those affiliated with it.
After Republican Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar spoke at the white nationalist event, McCarthy condemned their participation, calling it "unacceptable" and saying there is "no place" for anti-Semitism in the Republican Party.
Since Cheney's tweet, McCarthy spoke to the press about Trump's dinner with Fuentes.
He told reporters:
“I condemn [Fuentes'] ideology. It has no place in society — at all."
McCarthy also claimed, falsely, Trump also condemned Fuentes before reiterating the former President's claim he didn't know who Fuentes was.
\u201cAsked about Trump having Fuentes over for dinner, McCarthy lies and says Trump "condemned him" four times (Trump has not condemned Fuentes even once in fact)\u201d— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1669741191
On Twitter, many shared Cheney's anger about the dinner.
\u201c@Liz_Cheney @GOPLeader The Republican Party has gone full antisemite, homophobic and racist. The party of Reagan, Bush and Cheney is gone. This is the GOP.\u201d— Liz Cheney (@Liz Cheney) 1669729254
\u201c@Liz_Cheney @GOPLeader @GOPLeader is too afraid of the "base". And I can answer the question for you. The majority of the @GOP have abandoned their morals. MTG, Boebert, Gomertz are the representatives of Trump's GOP.\u201d— Liz Cheney (@Liz Cheney) 1669729254
\u201c@Liz_Cheney @GOPLeader I never thought I'd say "Go Mitt Romney." Once the GOP denounces 45 or at least his behavior, maybe let us know all those plans to "fix the border crisis, bring down inflation etc......" w/o mentioning laptops or Nancy Pelosi\u201d— Liz Cheney (@Liz Cheney) 1669729254
\u201c@Liz_Cheney @GOPLeader Oh no, Liz so here\u2019s the thing: the GOP is down with being morally bankrupt these days.\u201d— Liz Cheney (@Liz Cheney) 1669729254
\u201c@Liz_Cheney @robreiner @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy is a traitor to the United States, a coward!\u201d— Liz Cheney (@Liz Cheney) 1669729254
And they did not find McCarthy's subsequent comments about the dinner at all convincing.
\u201cMultiple members of the House GOP conference have been palling around with Fuentes for years, so I'm not sure why McCarthy thinks that the conference wouldn't put up with it. Especially as these two members McCarthy has explicitly promised to put back on committees.\u201d— Jacob Rubashkin (@Jacob Rubashkin) 1669747147
\u201cLeaving his meeting with Biden today, McCarthy flat out lies and claims Trump \u201ccondemned\u201d Nick Fuentes. At no point has Trump ever condemned Fuentes in any way. \ud83c\udfa5 PBS\u201d— Ron Filipkowski \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Ron Filipkowski \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1669750277
\u201c@ABC Lips moving he's lying..\u201d— ABC News (@ABC News) 1669741995
\u201c@lbarronlopez McCarthy can\u2019t afford to offend Fuentes, Greene, or their supporters. They\u2019re the GOP base, and he need them if he ever hopes to become Speaker in January.\u201d— Laura Barr\u00f3n-L\u00f3pez (@Laura Barr\u00f3n-L\u00f3pez) 1669742988
\u201cA reminder that as Kevin McCarthy says he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink anyone should be spending any time with Nick Fuentes,\u201d he is restoring committee roles for Gosar and Greene, who both who embraced Fuentes.\u201d— Matt McDermott (@Matt McDermott) 1669753640
While most Republicans have stayed silent on the matter, former Republican Vice President Mike Pence, Republican Utah Senator Mitt Romney and Republican Kentucky Representative James Comer, likely the next chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, have also condemned Trump for meeting with Fuentes.