Republicans following their new leader

This is the price America pays for Kevin McCarthy’s ambition. To understand the consequences of the many concessions the House speaker made to get his job, look at what has happened to the House Committee on Homeland Security. Created in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, it used to be a place where lawmakers took pride in overcoming partisanship for the sake of national security.

Then came the GOP takeover of the House this year. In his wisdom, McCarthy agreed not only to restore Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments (she had been stripped of them for glorifying violence against colleagues) but also to give her a seat on Homeland Security.

Last week, the Georgia Republican used her elevated status to praise Jack Teixeira, the National Guard airman and suspected leaker of highly classified U.S. intelligence about Ukraine, China and more. “Jake (sic) Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime,” Greene tweeted, adding, “Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”

But Greene wasn’t content merely to label the American president “the real enemy.” Next came a hearing Wednesday at which the panel was to grill Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the Biden administration’s proposed 2024 budget. Midway through the session, after Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., questioned Mayorkas about the effects of calls from GOP officials such as Donald Trump and Greene to “defund the FBI,” Greene began her five minutes of questioning with a sweet smile and a breathtaking libel.

“That was quite entertaining from someone that had a sexual relationship with a Chinese spy, and everyone knows it,” she said.

It was the very definition of slander. Democrats demanded that her words be “taken down.” Swalwell was one of several officials targeted a decade ago by a Chinese spy, but no evidence of a sexual relationship came to light.

Yet Republicans jumped to Greene’s defense. Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., ruled that Greene’s slander was “not going to be stricken from the record.” He went so far as to suggest the unsubstantiated innuendo was a “statement of fact.” And, when Democrats challenged the ruling, Republicans on the panel voted unanimously, in an 11-9 party-line tally, to defend Greene’s defamation of her colleague.

This is why extremists such as Greene can’t be dismissed as gadflies. They are central to the new majority. Greene was given a position of prominence by McCarthy, she raises prodigious funds, which her GOP colleagues gladly accept, and they defend her indefensible behavior.

Greene, thus bolstered by the unanimous vote of her GOP colleagues on the committee, turned her attention to Mayorkas, blaming him for “killing people” with fentanyl. When Mayorkas tried to defend himself, Greene cut him off, shouting: “You’re a liar!”

Democrats objected again. This time, finally, Chairman Green silenced her for the rest of the hearing.

But it was the chairman himself who set the ugly tone. According to an audio recording obtained by the New York Times, the chairman told donors last week: “On April 19, next week, get the popcorn — Alejandro Mayorkas comes before our committee, and it’s going to be fun.” (He later claimed he was somehow misquoted.)

Popcorn? Fun? This is the nation’s security.

I asked Mayorkas, who arrived 20 minutes early for the hearing, why he hadn’t heeded the chairman’s instructions to bring popcorn.

“Wrong movie,” he replied. He was determined not to give his tormentors the satisfaction of getting under his skin — and he mostly succeeded.

Chairman Green opened with a bit of Great Replacement theory. “You have not secured our borders, Mr. Secretary, and I believe you’ve done so intentionally,” he alleged, saying the administration policy is all about “moving people into the country,” to welcome “illegal aliens” and “settle them into the interior of our country.”

Epithets flew: “Reckless.” “Insult.” “Insane.” In the hearing room, the decibel app on my iPhone at one point found the chairman’s volume to be equivalent to a food processor. “Not only have you lied under oath, you just admitted your own incompetence!” (At least he didn’t call Mayorkas a “liar.”)

Mayorkas endured the shouting, finger pointing, table pounding and impeachment talk with eyes straight ahead. Invited by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, to respond to one Republican’s insults, he replied: “I’ve chosen not to, thank you.”

It brought to mind the old admonition not to wrestle with a pig: You’ll both get muddy, and the pig enjoys it.