Nathan News

MONONGAHELA, Pa. — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican who sympathized with rioters jailed for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, smiled broadly from her seat in the center of the stage on Friday as his party laid out what its program would be if it succeeded in taking control of the House in November.

A few seats down sat Representative John Katko, the centrist from central New York who voted to impeach former President Donald J. Trump in the Jan. 6 attack and is retiring from Congress.

Opposite was Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican and minority leader who aspires to be president and has worked to manage his party’s factions. At a manufacturing plant here, he introduced the “Commitment to America,” a set of principles he said would guide a majority of the GOP, and which seemed aimed at uniting members as disparate as Ms. Greene and Mr. Katko: fighting inflation, securing the border and hiring more police.

“They have no plan to fix all the problems they’ve created,” McCarthy said of Democrats. “So you know what? We have created a “Pledge to America”.

He was speaking to an audience that included 30 of his fellow House Republicans as well as factory workers and local residents in a politically pivotal state that is home to a competitive race for governor as well as critical House contests and of the Senate.

The agenda was light on details and avoided some topics that polls show do not favor Republicans’ chances of electoral success: abortion bans that most party members have passed, funding for the FBI, the January 6 attack or Mr. Trump and his ongoing legal troubles.

Instead, McCarthy has focused on proposals that most party members proudly support and that are unlikely to alienate the suburban and independent voters they need to win a majority.

He drew cheers from the crowd when he said the first agenda for a new Republican Congress would be a bill to cut the jobs of 87,000 IRS officers. That’s the number of employees the Treasury Department estimated the agency could hire with an infusion of money Congress recently provided to crack down on tax evasion.

But while the agenda has slowed less popular Republican proposals, it hasn’t omitted them entirely. It contained a reference to the party’s pledge to enact strict restrictions on abortion, pledging to “protect the lives of unborn children and their mothers”. He was referring to the GOP’s continued endorsement of Mr. Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, promising that a Republican majority would “increase accountability in the electoral process through voter identification.” And he hinted that Republicans would seek to change the Affordable Care Act and reverse legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs, saying the party wanted to “personalize care” and “lower prices through to transparency, choice and competition.

Perhaps more than politics, the event was about politics, aiming to unite an often split party behind Mr McCarthy, who many observers said would likely win only a narrow majority if the Republicans prevailed in the midterm elections. When creating the agenda, Mr McCarthy consulted with Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker who took office on the back of his “contract with America”.

Mr McCarthy garnered input from various factions of the party when creating the document, and on Friday it appeared he had appeased most of them – at least for now.

Both Mr Katko and Ms Greene said they felt it was important to attend the public roll-out to show party unity.

“Good rank in our conference doesn’t show up for things like this, but I don’t believe in sitting around or being angry about anything,” Ms. Greene said. Mr. McCarthy has vowed to reinstate her on congressional committees from which she was banned by the Democratic-led House because of her extreme statements. “I want to have a seat at the table.”

His prominent seat on the stage on Friday was a notable hug by Mr McCarthy of a politician who has promoted conspiracy theories and worked to undermine the 2020 election results, but attracts a large number of donors and wields influence on the right flank of the party.

As Ms Greene spoke to reporters, fans lined up to have their photo taken with her. She gave herself considerable wiggle room when asked if she would support Mr. McCarthy as a speaker.

“He’s the only person to come forward as a speaker, and I love ‘Commitment to America,'” Ms Greene said.

Democrats grabbed his seat of honor as evidence that Mr McCarthy’s agenda was constructed to mask party extremism.

“The real details of the Republican agenda are too frightening for most American voters,” said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat and Majority Leader, who visited United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh to counter the Republican cheer rally.

“Chief McCarthy, of course, is in Pennsylvania today because he wants voters to forget,” Hoyer said. “He also wants Americans to ignore that a majority of House Republicans voted to void the 2020 election — even after violent insurgents attacked the US Capitol building.”

The Republican event was the culmination of an agenda rollout this week that was a little messy at times. Embargoed materials were accidentally published online in advance, arousing mockery from the Democrats before lawmakers are ready to announce it. One document included a quote credited to Abraham Lincoln that is likely apocryphal, according to congressional researchers, one of whom noted that while internet sources have widely attributed it to the 16th president, it appears to be from a company advertisement financier Shearson Lehman. 1980s brothers.

“Commitment,” the quote reads, “is what turns a promise into reality.”

A hazy video filled with images billed as idyllic American footage appeared to include stock photography from Russia and Ukraine, according to a HuffPost analysis.

But on Friday in western Pennsylvania, Republican lawmakers hammered home domestic themes they say will resonate with voters, even as a recent poll indicated a “red wave” that was once expected to drag the party in power in large numbers began to weaken.

Republicans have said they will aggressively investigate President Biden’s administration.

Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the party’s No. 2 leader, said Republicans would bring in Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the Homeland Security Secretary, for questioning so often he would need a “place of reserved parking” on Capitol Hill.

“We would like to know how many people crossed our border illegally,” Mr Scalise said. “Where did they go? How many went to Pennsylvania?

Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who will likely become chairman of the Judiciary Committee if Republicans retake the House, said he would investigate the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“They want us to believe that no, no, no, it went from a bat to a pangolin to Joe Rogan and then we all figured it out,” Mr Jordan said, as the crowd laughed . “I’m just a country boy from Ohio, but I think it’s probably from the lab.”

Scientists released a pair of in-depth studies in February that point to a large food and live animal market in Wuhan, China, as the source of the coronavirus pandemic.

Although Mr. Trump’s name was only mentioned once during the presentation, some in the audience said they wanted the party to keep going.

“I am one of the millions of people in this country who may not have a MAGA hat, but I have a MAGA heart,” said Reverend James Nelson of New Birth Ministries of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, s speaking from the audience with a microphone. .

Republicans cheered loudly.