Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham likened the House GOP leadership to the “mafia” Monday after they stripped Rep. Mark Meadows of his subcommittee chairmanship following his opposition to trade.
During an interview on her eponymous radio program with Rep. Jim Jordan, Ingraham argued that what House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz did in removing Meadows is “what the mafia does.”
“They want to enforce the rules, they want to enforce their rules. You will not challenge us, you will not have a different view on these issues and if you choose to go with the likes of Jim Jordan, you will be severely punished,” Ingraham told the Ohio Representative.
“You’ll become the lowest of the low in the U.S. Congress. This is what the mafia does. I’m sorry, but this is a political mafia ran on Capitol Hill,” Ingraham said. “I don’t see this as a Republican Party who represent people like me and if they distant themselves from people like me, then, I don’t see how you’re going to win the presidency. I don’t get it.”
Jordan, who also bucked leadership on the vote, called Chaffetz’s move “exactly wrong,” telling the host “there are a number of us who are fed up” with the moves.
“It’s completely wrong and it’s more of what I just described,” Jordan told Ingraham. “So, Mark Meadows gets punished for voting his conscience for doing what he told the voters in North Carolina he was going to do.”
“Leadership yelled at us, leadership punished Mark Meadows for voting his conscience and doing what the voters elected him us to do. How is that helping set the framework, create an environment that’s going … for the Republican to win the White House, which we all know is something that needs to happen if we are truly going to turn things around policy wise in Washington,” Jordan said. “What they did to him is exactly wrong, and there are a number of us who are fed up with it. And we are looking for ways that we can say hey we are going to stay with Mark and be as helpful as we possibly can.”
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