(CNN)Former President Donald Trump’s most staunch allies in Congress have been relegated to the political wilderness in recent years. Now they are planning their comeback.
With the growing likelihood that Republicans will take over the House of Representatives after this fall’s election — and the prospect of Trump running for president again in 2024 — members of the Trump-loving House Freedom Caucus are bracing themselves for the next era to flex their muscles. Under the new leadership of Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the group hopes to use its hard-line tactics, ties to Trump and friendlier relationship with GOP leadership to bend its party to its will and stamp its MAGA-like stamp on the conference push up.
Among the top items on their wish list: They want more of their members in positions of authority under a GOP-run house. A Freedom Caucus co-founder and Trump acolyte, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, is already lining up to wield the coveted gavel of the House Judiciary Committee — and all the subpoena power that comes with it.
Another caucus member plans to chair the House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee next year. The conservative crew is also urging GOP leaders to enlist a Freedom Caucus lawmaker for the House Intelligence Committee, which has become ground zero for some of the most heated and partisan fighting during the Trump administration. And it’s entirely possible for a caucus member to run for a seat at the leadership table, especially when there are vacancies.
“We will urge a fair trial; we will push for more participation. Freedom Caucus members don’t seem to have much of a place in many major decisions,” said Perry, a staunch Trump ally who has come under scrutiny for trying to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021. “
But the prospect of a larger and more emboldened House Freedom Caucus means some of the group’s loudest MAGA rabble-rousers, like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and Paul Gosar of Arizona, will also be there be increased. And that could pose a potential governance challenge for Republican leaders, who have so far struggled to contain the GOP’s fringe elements.
The party’s most prominent provocateurs have even earned a private new nickname from some of their peers: “the trending caucus.” That’s because on any given day, this extremist crew’s behavior makes headlines — and causes headaches for GOP leadership. Last week alone, they drew unwanted attention to their party for harassing President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address, attending a conference organized by a well-known white nationalist, and the only “no” votes for Measures to make lynching a federal hate crime and to express support for Ukraine amid its war with Russia.
Even some members of the Freedom Caucus were privately frustrated by Greene and Gosar’s recent antics and sought to distance themselves from the event’s organizer, Nick Fuentes, a well-known white nationalist. These internal divisions could widen further when Republicans are in power and the Freedom Caucus has to make important decisions about how to wield its influence and use its megaphone.
“A lot of them disagree with what she’s done,” said moderate Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who said he spoke with members of the Freedom Caucus about Greene’s appearance at the White Nationalist conference. “I don’t know if they agree on that.”
Trying to maintain a sense of house GOP unity
Key to the Freedom Caucus’ ability to prevail in the majority is its strength in numbers and its willingness to stick together, although its power ultimately depends on the size of the GOP majority. The gang of around 40 rabble-rousers expanded by almost a dozen members in the last election and hopes to expand their troops even further this fall.
However, lawmakers like Greene and Cawthorn – both of whom regularly speak to Trump and take routine hikes to Mar-a-Lago – have lobbied in Ruby counties across the country to recast the conference in a more MAGA-like image they suffered last week in Texas suffered her first major defeat when her preferred candidate, Christian Collins, lost to Kevin McCarthy-backed Morgan Luttrell in an open primary.
Still, the group is confident it will have more opportunities this year to elect more like-minded lawmakers to the House of Representatives.
“Don’t forget that we’ve added 11 new members to the Freedom Caucus since the last election,” said Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, the former Freedom Caucus chief. “If we don’t pick up five or six (next year) I’d be surprised.”
Another reason the group may have more influence in the majority: their warmer relationship with GOP leadership. Unlike his predecessors, who ruled more with an iron fist, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has taken a softer approach with the conservative crew, a key group in his quest to secure the Speaker’s gavel.
The Freedom Caucus denied the speakership to the California Republican in 2015, and to seal the deal next time he may have to make some concessions to the group that would further strengthen it.
To keep the group in his good graces, McCarthy has invited the Freedom Caucus to his office for numerous face-to-face meetings to discuss various topics and has occasionally attended the group’s weekly meetings. Most notably, he turned Jordan, a former rival, into a key ally by promoting him to senior committee posts. McCarthy also publicly defended Greene and Gosar when Democrats threw them out of their committees for inflammatory rhetoric, and vowed to give them new jobs — and possibly even better ones — if Republicans regain the majority.
And whenever members of the Freedom Caucus cause trouble, McCarthy prefers to deal with them behind the scenes, like when Greene complained about him on a Thanksgiving podcast last year. The next day, McCarthy called Greene to set things straight.
While McCarthy condemned Greene and Gosar last week for attending the White Nationalist conference and said he plans to speak to them privately, there is no indication he has any plans to formally censure them for their behavior. In fact, Gosar attended the same conference last year and had no impact whatsoever; Then this year he addressed the congregation via video.
Allies of McCarthy say his approach has allowed the party to maintain a sense of unity in its quest to recapture the majority, and they also point out that Gosar and Greene have already been stripped of their committee duties, leaving him fewer tools at his disposal available to punish them. Not to mention, these far-right members are hugely popular with Trump and his die-hard supporters.
But others in the GOP fear the party’s extremists have been activated, and they warn that if they are in the majority and these Freedom Caucus members have an even bigger platform, the problem could get worse.
“It’s one thing to be a troublemaker, like an underdog brand, right? It’s another thing to be a crazy conference,” said a GOP House representative who was granted anonymity to speak more freely about his peers. “I mean, just the State of the Union alone, Marjorie, Lauren, their antics embarrassed us all. So how will next semester be if it gets worse?”
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It’s unclear how the Freedom Caucus plans to exercise its likely influence. Previous iterations of the group — which started as an ultra-conservative alternative to the Republican Study Committee but has since evolved more into a Trump loyalty club — have focused more on process and transparency concerns, as well as fiscal conservatism. Some of the more experienced members of the group still emphasize this as a top priority.
“We have to make sure we get a good rulebook, make sure we have good leaders on all the right committees and on the leadership team,” said Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, a member of the Freedom Caucus leadership team. “And then as we look at our agenda, it’s going to be important to unify Republicans in the House and Senate about what we’re going to step on the mat in the appropriation process.”
But some of the freshman arsonists seem more intent on making headlines and turning the house into a site for Trump’s vendetta. Greene, for example, has introduced numerous bills to impeach Biden, called for the GOP to form its own selection committee on Jan. 6 to paint an alternative narrative of the uprising, and called for Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois expelled from the GOP conference for her role in investigating the attack on the Capitol. Greene also angered many of her colleagues, including some members of the Freedom Caucus, early last year when she repeatedly forced procedural votes without a clear strategy behind them.
“If you’re Mark Green or Jeff Duncan or Ben Cline, do you really want to be associated with either Marjorie Taylor Greene or Gosar? I wouldn’t believe that,” the GOP House representative said, checking some of the names of more soft-spoken members of the Freedom Caucus. “We are a long way from Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows’ Freedom Caucus leading the caucus at this point.”
For the Freedom Caucus to be truly influential, it must stand united on votes, which would give it the power to block legislation from having a say if the faction isn’t happy with it. Under its current rules, the caucus must vote as a unified bloc when taking a formal position on an issue, requiring the approval of 80% of its members.
But lawmakers who are part of the caucus insist they are aligned not only with each other but with their own leadership. It might help that when Republicans retake power, the House GOP will likely focus more on passing messaging bills and exercising tight oversight of the Biden administration — an area where they have a lot more internal Consensus – than on governing, as that will be the case will have Biden in the White House for at least two more years.
“Hopefully we’re all on the same page and not having to worry about these things, down the line,” Perry said.
Biggs added: “There will be harmony. It’s unicorns and rainbows!”
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