Congressman Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, this week continued his unrelenting slide into the Trumpian swamp.
He joined about 100 of his House Republican colleagues — including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — in sponsoring a Washington, D.C., fundraiser for Harriet Hageman, the Wyoming Republican who is attempting to unseat Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., in that state’s primary.
Count among those names the usual suspects in Trump world — Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Mo Brooks, R-Ala., Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio — along with Idaho’s 1st District Congressman Russ Fulcher.
Simpson used to keep better company.
And he knows something about being targeted by the radical right wing of his own party for defeat. Surely, Simpson would not appreciate some of his fellow Republicans assisting his past and current opponent, Idaho Falls medical debt predator Bryan Smith, in the May 17 GOP primary.
What could Cheney’s sin possibly be?
The rumbling among Republican circles is that her opposition to former President Donald Trump and her work on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection he instigated makes Cheney “disruptive” to the House GOP Conference.
How is Cheney any more disruptive to the House GOP than Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.?
How is calling for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assassination on social media not disruptive?
How is calling the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School In Parkland, Fla., a “false flag” operation not disruptive?
How is blaming California wildfires on a Jewish-financed space laser not disruptive?
Yet only 11 House Republicans voted with House Democrats to reprimand Greene by removing her from the Budget and the Education and Labor committees.
Nothing Greene did bothered Simpson enough to join those 11.
How is Cheney any more disruptive to the House GOP than Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.?
How is posting an anime video that showed Gosar killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and threatening President Joe Biden with a sword not disruptive?
Yet Simpson joined all but Cheney and fellow Jan. 6 committee member Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., in supporting Gosar when the House censured him.
If Cheney’s work on the Jan. 6 committee is so disruptive, then why was Simpson one of 35 House Republicans who supported the creation of an independent commission to get to the bottom of the Capitol insurrection? It was only after Senate Republicans blocked the move that Pelosi formed the House panel, appointing Cheney and Kinzinger to serve on it.
Of those 35 House Republicans, only five including Simpson supported Hageman’s fundraiser.
Does Cheney’s assertion that Trump is “clearly unfit for future office (and) clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again” justify her removal from Congress?
Where does that leave Simpson? After the Access Hollywood tape caught the 2016 GOP nominee in a lurid conversation in which he acknowledged his sexual abuse of women, Simpson declared: “In my opinion, he has demonstrated that he is unfit to be president and I cannot support him.”
At that time, Cheney was one of the few Republicans who stood by Trump. She said he was better for Wyoming than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
It took Cheney five years to catch up with Simpson.
Is it that Cheney is some kind of a Republican in name only?
If so, where does that leave Simpson?
The American Conservative Union rates Cheney at 74%; Simpson scores at 69%.
The Club for Growth says Cheney votes its way 61% of the time; Simpson comes in at 54%.
What’s going on here? Simpson did not have to jump into this fight. Why didn’t he remain neutral and leave Cheney’s fate to the voters of Wyoming?
It could be that Simpson — who was notably loyal to House Speakers Dennis Hastert, John Boehner and Paul Ryan — is getting behind McCarthy’s bid to take control of the House in the midterms.
The more obvious notion is that if Trump campaigns for Hageman in Wyoming, Simpson does not want the former president heading west in to Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District on Smith’s behalf.
Either way, it’s a departure for an Idaho politician who was willing to gamble his office on doing the right thing — whether it was protecting the crown jewels of Idaho’s Boulder-White Cloud wilderness, preserving the state’s imperiled salmon and steelhead runs or even accepting the necessity of tax increases to balance the federal budget.
This kind of political expediency is worthy of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., not Mike Simpson. — M.T.
