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On Capitol Hill, there are a small handful of prominent Republicans who have a reputation for occasionally breaking party ranks and showing a degree of independence. GOP members such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for example, has been rather bold about expressing her dissatisfaction with the GOP’s direction under Donald Trump’s direction.
House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul, however, are not exactly known as Republican “mavericks.” They’re both longtime conservative partisans whose views tend to dovetail nicely with GOP orthodoxy. When Democrats search in desperation for potential Republican moderates who might be willing to work on bipartisan compromises, Turner’s and McCaul’s phones do not ring.
With this in mind, their latest rhetoric about their party and Russian propaganda is generating a lot of interest, and for good reason. NBC News reported:
GOP Rep. Mike Turner said Sunday that Russian propaganda has taken hold among some of his House Republican colleagues and is even “being uttered on the House floor.” “We see directly coming from Russia ... communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The Ohio Republican didn’t name names, though he added, in apparent reference to members of his own party, “There are members of Congress today who still incorrectly say that this conflict between Russia and Ukraine is over NATO, which of course it is not.”
The Intelligence Committee chair isn’t alone. Just five days before Turner’s on-air comments to CNN, McCaul was surprisingly candid in comments to Puck News’s Julia Ioffe. “I think Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base,” the Texan lamented.
McCaul added, “There are some more nighttime entertainment shows that seem to spin, like, I see the Russian propaganda in some of it — and it’s almost identical [to what Russian audiences hear from state-run media] — on our airwaves.” The Republican went on to admonish those who “read various conspiracy-theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda.”
There can be little doubt that these powerful GOP committee chairmen are correct. Their party has a “Putin wing“; it’s loud; it’s growing; and it’s having a dramatic impact on the party’s base.
All of which makes it all the more notable to see leading Republican voices such as McCaul and Turner push back. What’s more, as The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake explained, there are some other recent examples, including Republican Sen. Thom Tillis warning his GOP colleagues not to become Putin apologists.
The North Carolinian didn’t call out any Republicans in particular, though it’s not difficult to come up with plenty of compelling examples.
As this lengthens the list of intraparty GOP fissures, House Speaker Mike Johnson is poised to move forward with plans for an aid package for Ukraine — which will be targeted with a vengeance from far-right members whose views echo the Kremlin’s agenda. Watch this space.