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Texas Republicans are fighting about whether it’s OK to associate with white supremacists Tesnim Zekeria

Published

10 months ago

October 12, 2023

White supremacist Nick Fuentes in 2017 (Photo by Christopher Evans via Getty Images)

Last week, Jonathan Stickland — president of the far-right Defend Texas Liberty PAC and a former state representative — met with notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes and other right-wing extremists. The meeting, first reported by the Texas Tribune, lasted “for several hours” at the headquarters of Pale Horse Strategies, a political consulting group owned by Stickland.

Fuentes’ views have been long documented. The provocateur describes himself as “just like Hitler.” An outspoken holocaust denier, Fuentes has claimed that the number of Jewish victims killed by Nazi Germany “doesn’t add up” and compared the killings to baking cookies. He has also called for “the military to be sent into Black neighborhoods,” defended Jim Crow segregation, and said that he’s seeking a “total Aryan victory.” He believes women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, and regularly espouses anti-LGBTQ and sexist views.

But in the aftermath of the meeting, “extraordinary criticism and infighting” has erupted among the Texas GOP over the meeting with Fuentes. The turmoil was triggered after Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan criticized Strickland for hosting a “Hitler Apologist” while Israel is at war.

“This [is] not just a casual misstep,” Phelan said in a statement on October 9. “It’s indicative of the moral, political rot that has been festering in a certain segment of our party for far too long. Anti-Semitism, bigotry and Hitler apologists should find no sanctuary in the Republican Party. Period. We cannot – and must not – tolerate the tacit endorsement of such vile ideologies.”

Phelan also called on elected officials who received money from Defend Texas Liberty “to immediately redirect every single cent of those contributions to a charitable organization” and “to state unequivocally that they will not accept further contributions” from the PAC. In his statement, the House Speaker specifically highlighted Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick who has received $3 million from Defend Texas Liberty. “I expect him to lead the way in redirecting these funds,” Phelan wrote. Sixty members of the House Republican Caucus – roughly two-thirds of the chamber – also published a letter criticizing the meeting as “profoundly disturbing” and “echo[ing] Speaker Phelan’s call” to redirect funds.

Patrick, in response, issued a statement condemning Fuentes and “his antisemitic rhetoric.” But, in the same statement, he also accuses Phelan of invoking the situation in Israel for his “own political purposes.”

“For anyone to try to use these invectives for their own political gain is below contempt,” Patrick said. “I am calling on Dade Phelan to resign his position before the House gavels in this afternoon.” Other hard-right Republicans have since called for Phelan’s resignation, including Attorney General Ken Paxton. Phelan recently pushed the Texas House to impeach Paxton for corruption.

Notably, Patrick does not mention Defend Texas Liberty in his statement. Created in 2020, Defend Texas Liberty is primarily funded by conservative Texas billionaires, brothers Dan and Farris Wilks, and Tim Dunn. The PAC is part of a robust network of conservative organizations that have received “nearly $100 million” from Dunn and the Wilks brothers over the last two decades. The Wilks brothers, for example, are among the biggest benefactors of PragerU and provided the initial funding for The Daily Wire.

The PAC, which is run by Stickland, says that it stands “with grassroots conservatives.” For the 2022 election cycle, Defend Texas Liberty spent $5.2 million on far-right candidates to unseat incumbent Republican House members and Texas Governor Greg Abbott because they were “insufficiently conservative.” These efforts, however, were unsuccessful — all 19 of the house candidates it backed lost, and Abbott easily won reelection. Meanwhile, State Representative Bryan Slaton (R), one of the largest recipients of the PAC’s money, was expelled earlier this year “for plying a 19-year-old staffer with alcohol and having sex with her.”

The PAC is also “one of Paxton’s largest campaign financiers.” During Paxton’s impeachment trial, the group “paid for campaign mailers, television ads, and text messages to try to sway senators.” It also “threatened to target pro-impeachment Republicans in next year’s primary elections.” Defend Texas Liberty’s large contributions to Patrick came just before he presided over Paxton’s Senate impeachment trial.

The Texas GOP has also received donations from Defend Texas Liberty. According to the Texas Tribune, Matt Rinaldi, the chair of the party, was seen entering the Pale Horse Strategies building while Fuentes was there. Rinaldi told the news outlet that he “completely condemn[s] that guy” and “would never in a million years meet with that guy.” But Rinaldi is an associate of Stickland – the two sat on the board of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, an advocacy founded by Michael Quinn Sullivan, a high-profile “conservative activist,” the Houston Chronicle reports. Rinaldi has also “used his authority to throw the Republican Party of Texas behind Paxton and against the 60 out of 85 Republican representatives who held Paxton accountable,”

In a short statement, the PAC told the Tribune that it opposes Fuentes’ “incendiary views” and “reject[s] Speaker Phelan’s effort to combine Defend Texas Liberty PAC with Nick Fuentes.” But it did not explain why the group spent hours meeting with Fuentes.

Popular Information contacted recipients of Defend Texas Liberty’s campaign contributions since 2022.

Most Texas Republicans are keeping the money

Popular Information contacted 45 campaigns that received donations from Defend Texas Liberty PAC since 2022 and asked if they would be returning the money or donating it to other causes.

Texas State Representative Stan Kitzman (R) sent Popular Information a statement promising to “redirect the $5,000 contribution from Defend Texas Liberty to support causes that resonate with my personal values as a Christian and as a representative of House District 85.” These donations include “$1,000 each to AIPAC, Shriners Hospitals for Children, Christians Engaged, Rohr Chabad Jewish Student Center of Texas A&M, and the Texas DPS Officers Association.”

The statement condemned Defend Texas Liberty’s association with Fuentes, saying that, “Fuentes’ views stand in stark contrast to conservative values, and it is imperative that any serious conservative disavow such associations… While I have no intention of labeling the members of Defend Texas Liberty as antisemites or racists, their decision to engage with someone like Nick Fuentes is a step too far.” Kitzman was the only House Republican who signed the letter denouncing Defend Texas Liberty who also had previously received money from the organization.

David Lowe (R), who is running for Texas State Representative District 91 after losing the Republican primary runoff for the same seat in 2022, sent Popular Information a statement from his campaign manager James Scott Trimm and his wife Ingrid Kitty Trimm, who are both Jewish, defending Stickland. “I am proud to say that Jonathan Stickland is a friend of many years… Anyone who suggests that Jonathan Stickland is antisemitic, clearly does not know the man. I am personally offended at Speaker Dade Phelan’s disingenuous efforts to exploit the recent horrific attack on Israel by Hamas,” the statement reads. “We absolutely denounce Nick Fuentes without reservation.”

According to the letter from Ingrid Kitty Trimm, Stickland told her he “did not know much about Fuentes” and “met with Fuentes for about 15 minutes out of courtesy.” Lowe’s statement did not indicate that he planned to return any money from Defend Texas Liberty.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Lowe was among the candidates to receive the most funding from Defend Texas Liberty PAC during one reporting period in 2022. According to the report, Lowe received “nearly $171,000” from the PAC.

The other campaigns that received money from Defend Texas Liberty did not respond to Popular Information’s request for comment. The sitting Texas House members that received the most money from Defend Texas Liberty since 2022 include Tony Tinderholt (R) ($119,000), Nate Schatzline (R) ($26,000), and Brian Harrison (R) ($22,500).

Prominent Republicans can’t stay away from Nick Fuentes

Despite his repugnant views, several prominent Republicans outside of Texas have chosen to associate themselves with Fuentes. In February 2022, two members of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ), addressed Fuentes’ white nationalist convention, the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC). Gosar addressed the conference by video while Greene appeared in person and was introduced by Fuentes. (Gosar addressed AFPAC in person in 2021.)

Greene initially claimed that she does “not know Nick Fuentes,” had “never heard him speak,” and was unfamiliar with “his views.” But AFPAC was created because Fuentes was banned from the larger Conservative Political Action Conference. Greene appeared familiar with the group’s origins, addressing the AFPAC crowd as “canceled Americans.” Later, Greene reversed course, saying that she decided that she was not going “turn down the opportunity to speak to 1,200 young America First patriots because of a few off-color remarks.” (She also described the group as “1,200 people gathered to declare that Christ is King.”) She criticized the “establishment” for deciding to “cancel” AFPAC.

In November 2022, Fuentes dined with former President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump claimed he knew “nothing about” Fuentes prior to the dinner. Fuentes is active on Trump’s social network, Truth Social. After the dinner, however, Trump “repeatedly refused to disavow the outspoken antisemite and white supremacist… over fears he might alienate a section of his base,” the Guardian reported.

Substacks

July 25, 2024 Heather Cox Richardson

Published

11 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Substacks

TGIF: The Week Unburdened by the Week That Has Been Suzy Weiss

Published

18 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside of Union Station to protest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States. (Probal Rashid via Getty Images)

Oh, no, it’s the sister again, for another slow news week. Let’s get to it.

→ Biden dropped out: Six years ago emotionally, but technically this past Sunday, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. He did it via X and promptly threw his support (and cash) behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Then he got Covid and hunkered down in Delaware—or depending on what hooch you’ve been drinking, died and was reanimated so he could appear before the cameras on Wednesday to address the nation. Joe’s family, including Hunter, sat along the wall of the Oval Office as he spoke. The president talked about the cancer moonshot, ending the war in Gaza, putting the party over himself, and Kamala’s tenacity, as Kamala’s pistol dug ever-so-slightly harder into his back. Right after, Jill, the First Lady of passive aggression, who apparently wanted to outdo her heart emoji, tweeted a handwritten note “to those who never wavered, to those who refused to doubt, to those who always believed.” I respect a First Lady who stands by her man and her energetic stepson. A First Lady who sees the high road way up there and says to herself, “If they want us out of here so bad, they can clean out the fridge and strip the beds themselves!”

→ Kamala is brat, Biden is boots, please God send the asteroid today: I’ve learned the hard way—and by that I mean my parents once asked me what “WAP” meant—that certain things should never be explained with words. It’s not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it embarrasses everyone.

That’s how I feel about the whole Kamala-is-brat thing. Brat is a good album about partying and getting older and having anxiety that was released earlier this summer by Charli XCX. But it’s since been adopted by too-online and very young people as a personality, and by Kamala Harris’s campaign as a mode to relate to those very young people. Her campaign is leaning into the whole green look of the album to try and win over Gen Z, and generally recasting her many viral moments—“You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” “I love Venn diagrams” “What can be, unburdened but what has been”—as calling cards. It’s like when Hillary went on Broad City, only this time more cringe.

And now we have Jake Tapper and Greg Gutfeld grappling with the “essence” and the “aesthetic” and overall vibe of brat girl summer. We used to be a serious country. We used to make things.

Here’s the thing about Kamla: she is hilarious and campy, but unintentionally so. Any goodwill that her goofy dances or weird turns of phrase garner should be considered bonus points, not game play. Was there ever any doubt that Fire Island would go blue? We’ve been debating whether Kamala’s meme campaign is a good move for her prospects in the Free Press Slack, and here I’ll borrow from my older and wiser colleague Peter Savodnik: “There is nothing more pathetic than an older person who cares what a younger person thinks is cool.”

→ Boomer behavior: While Kamala’s campaign is being run by a 24-year-old twink with an Adderall prescription, J.D. Vance’s speechwriter seems to be a drunk Boomer who just got kicked out of a 7-11. Vance, appearing this week at a rally in Middletown, Ohio, riffed, “Democrats say that it is racist to believe. . . well, they say it’s racist to do anything. I had a Diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today, and I’m sure they’re going to call that racist too.” Crickets. Horror. Major “Thanks, Obama” energy. There was also a bit on fried bologna sandwiches and a lot of “lemme tell you another story.” The guy is 39 but sounds older than Biden.

Fresher, 35-to-60-year-old blood is exactly what we’ve been begging for. Let the Boomers boom, let the Zoomers zoom. Kamala and J.D.: act your age.

Substacks

July 25, 2024 Heather Cox Richardson

Published

22 hours ago

July 26, 2024

Momentum continues to build behind Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, and the national narrative as a whole has shifted.

Democrats appear to be generating significant enthusiasm among younger Americans. Yesterday, for the first time in their history, the March for Our Lives organization endorsed a presidential candidate: Kamala Harris. Students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, organized March for Our Lives after the shooting there in 2018. Executive director Natalie Fall said that the organization “will work to mobilize young people across the country to support Vice President Harris and other down-ballot candidates, with a particular focus on the states and races where we can make up the margin of victory—in Arizona, New York, Michigan, and Florida.”

Andrea Hailey of Vote.org announced that in the 48 hours after President Biden said he would not accept the Democratic nomination, nearly 40,000 people registered to vote. That meant a daily increase in new registrations of almost 700%.

People are turning out for Harris in impressive numbers. In the hours after she launched her campaign, Win With Black Women rallied 44,000 Black women on Zoom and raised $1.6 million. On Monday, around 20,000 Black men rallied to raise $1.2 million. Tonight, challenged to “answer the call,” 164,000 white women joined an event that “broke Zoom” and raised more than $2 million and tens of thousands of new volunteers.

Another significant endorsement for Harris came yesterday from Geoff Duncan, the Republican former lieutenant governor of Georgia, who wrote on social media: “I’m committed to beating Donald Trump. The only vehicle left for me to do that with is the Democratic Party. If that requires me to vote for, speak for, or endorse [Kamala Harris] then count me in!” Duncan’s public announcement offers permission for other Georgia Republicans to make a similar shift. In 1964, South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond similarly paved the way for southern Democrats to vote for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Harris’s appearances are generating such enthusiasm from audiences that when she delivered the keynote address this morning at the convention of the American Federation of Teachers in Houston, Texas, the applause delayed her ability to begin. After a speech defending education and calling out the cuts to it in Project 2025, Harris ended by demonstrating that after decades of Democrats being accused of being anti-American, Trump’s denigration of the country has enabled the party to claim the position of being America’s defenders.

“When we vote, we make our voices heard,” Harris said. “So today, I ask you, AFT, are you ready to make your voices heard? Do we believe in freedom? Do we believe in opportunity? Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it? And when we fight, we win! God bless you and God bless the United States of America.”

Today the Commerce Department reported that economic growth in the second quarter was higher than expected, coming in at 2.8%, thanks to higher spending driven by higher wages. The country’s changing momentum is showing in media stories hyping the booming economy Biden’s team tried for years to get traction on. “Full Employment is Joe Biden’s True Legacy” was the title of a story by Zachary Carter that appeared yesterday in Slate; CNN responded to today’s good economic news with an article by Bryan Mena titled: “The US economy is pulling off something historic.”

With Harris appearing to have sewn up the nomination, the question has turned to her vice presidential pick. That question is fueling the sense of excitement as potential choices are in front of cameras and on social media advocating Democratic positions and defending the United States from Trump’s denigration. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro listed the economic gains of the past years, and said: “Trump, you’ve got to stop sh*t talking America. We’ve got to start standing tall and being patriotic and showing how much we love this amazing nation.”

The vice presidential hopefuls appear to be having some fun with showcasing their personalities, as Minnesota governor Tim Walz did in his video from the Minnesota State Fair where he and his daughter went on an extreme ride. So are social media users who have dug up old videos of, for example, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg explaining how he would pilot a small starfighter that had lost its auxiliary shields, or Arizona senator Mark Kelly’s identical twin brother Scott pranking a fellow astronaut on the Space Station with a gorilla suit Mark smuggled on board.

That sense of fun is an enormous relief after years of political weight, and it has spilled over into making fun of the Republican ticket, most notably with a false story that vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance wrote about—and I cannot believe I am typing this—having sex with a couch. The story is stupid, but worse are the denials of it, which have spread the story into populations that otherwise would likely not have seen it.

Just two weeks ago, Vance appeared to be the leader of the next generation of extremist MAGA Republicans, but now that calculation seems to have been hasty. Vance is a staunch opponent of abortion—the key issue in 2024—and he has been vocal in his disdain of women who have not given birth, saying in 2021, for example, that the U.S. was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He went on to say that people who don’t have children “don’t really have a direct stake” in the country.

Republican commentator Meghan McCain noted that Vance’s “comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump supporting friends. These comments have caused real pain and are just innately unchristian.” Actor Jennifer Aniston, who tends to stay out of politics, posted: “I truly can’t believe this is coming from a potential VP of The United States.” Vance had called out Harris by name in those 2021 comments, and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff took to social media to defend Harris from Vance’s attacks on her as “childless,” calling her “a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.” Harris’s stepdaughter chimed in: “I love my three parents.”

Vance also ties the Republican ticket firmly to Project 2025. The Trump camp has worked to distance itself from Project 2025—not convincingly, since the two are obviously closely tied, but it turns out that Vance wrote the introduction for a forthcoming book by Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who was the lead author of Project 2025. The book appears to popularize that plan, right down to its endorsement of a “Second American Revolution,” and according to the book deal report, proceeds from the book will go to the Heritage Foundation “and aligned nonprofits.”

Now Vance’s words praising Project 2025 will be in print, just in time for the election. Yesterday, Trump posted: “I have nothing to do with, and know nothing about, Project 25 [sic]. The fact that I do is merely disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs. Do not believe them!”

Trump is clearly aware of, and concerned about, the changing narrative. This morning, he called in to Fox & Friends, saying, “We don’t need the votes. I have so many votes. I’m in Florida now…and every house has a Trump-Vance sign on it. Every single house…. It’s amazing the spirit…. This election has more spirit than I’ve ever seen ever before.” Tonight the Trump campaign proved their worry by backing out of debates with Harris, saying debates can’t be scheduled until she is the official nominee, although Biden was not the official nominee when they met in June.

The larger narrative shift has affected the media approach to Trump, who is accustomed to shaping perceptions as he wishes. Now, 12 days after the mass shooting at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there is increasing media attention to the fact that there has still been no medical report on Trump’s injuries, although he wore a large bandage on his ear at the Republican National Convention and said at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday that he “took a bullet for democracy.”

Yesterday, FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress that it is not clear whether Trump was “grazed” by a bullet or by shrapnel, words that former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance called “FBI speak for, ‘it’s unlikely it was a bullet.’”

CNN chief medical consultant Dr. Sanjay Gupta noted last week that the people need a real medical evaluation of Trump’s injuries, explaining that “gunshot blasts near the head can cause injuries that aren’t immediately noticeable, such as bleeding in or on the brain, damage to the inner ear or even psychological trauma.” But, as Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has noted, much of the press has kept mum about the story.

Media outlets have reported Wray’s testimony, though, and in a social media post today, Trump called on Wray, whom he appointed to head the FBI, to resign from his post for “LYING TO CONGRESS.” Tonight, he reiterated that “it was…a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.”

Perhaps eager to get back to their districts, House Republicans canceled their expected votes on appropriations bills scheduled for next week and left town today for their August recess. The House will not reconvene until early September. The government’s fiscal year 2025 begins on October 1.

—

Notes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/opinion/trump-lies-charts-data.html

https://marchforourlives.org/in-a-first-ever-endorsement-march-for-our-lives-endorses-kamala-harris-for-president/

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-economic-growth-regains-steam-second-quarter-inflation-slows-2024-07-25/

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/07/biden-economy-employment-inflation.html

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/entertainment/jennifer-aniston-jd-vance/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/25/economy/us-economy-gdp-second-quarter/index.html

https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/jd-vance-wrote-foreword-book-project-2025-architect-kevin-roberts-and-proceeds

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-might-not-shot-1930037

https://people.com/was-trump-struck-by-bullet-or-shrapnel-fbi-director-testifies-8683340

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-wants-fbi-director-resign-immediately-chris-wray-rcna163641