Weeks after leaving office, Trump divides Republicans

The Republican Party is at a crossroads. It seems that ever since Trump’s defeat and the events of January 6 in particular, the party is conflicted and can’t find its way forward.

The defining moment came during the vote on Trump’s second impeachment in the House of Representatives, when ten Republicans voted for the measure — the most ever to support the impeachment of a president from their own party.

One of the representatives supporting Trump’s impeachment was Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House. The daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, a symbol of Bush neoconservatism, she released a statement explaining her decision: “On January 6, 2021, a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral vote. The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

When Cheney released that statement, it was just six days after the events at the Capitol, and many Republicans were still in shock. Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that Trump bore “some responsibility” for the debacle. Mitch McConnell also condemned Trump, and his wife — Transportation Secretary Elain Chao — resigned from the administration in protest. It felt like a significant part of the leadership of the Republican Party was turning its back on Trump.

But since then the dynamic has reversed, and very rapidly. The first inkling came during a procedural vote in the Senate ahead of the impeachment trial, which will open on February 8. In a vote engineered by Senator Rand Paul, 45 of 50 Republican senators voted against hearing impeachment articles against a former president.

For Trump, this is a very encouraging indication for the results of the trial next month. The chances of 17 Republicans voting to impeach him (to achieve the required two-thirds majority) seem very slim.

There are a number of reasons for this. Some argue that there’s no point in impeachment now that Trump’s term has ended, and that all it will achieve is to further divide the American people. Others explain their opposition through legal technicalities. You can’t impeach a private citizen, they say.

But truth is those are only secondary reasons. Many in the party sense that although Trump may not be president anymore, he remains extremely popular among the Republican base. Senators such as Lindsey Graham — who released a statement saying “count me out” during the Capitol riot — rushed back to the former president’s defense on national TV.

And that’s not all. Not only is Trump’s base not going anywhere, it’s those who opposed him who will be on the defensive in primaries down the road. Kevin McCarthy flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week and even posed for a photo. According to reports, the two met to discuss Republican efforts to regain control of the House in 2022, which shows what a key figure he remains.

At the same time, Matt Gaetz, a Republican congressman from Florida, flew halfway across the country to campaign against Liz Cheney in Wyoming. “I’ve only been here for about an hour and I feel that I already know the place much better than your misguided representative Liz Cheney,” he told the crowd.

Among Trump’s most loyal supporters is a congresswoman from Georgia known as Marjorie Taylor Greene. A QAnon supporter with a fondness for conspiracy theories, Greene outdid herself this week with a new claim that extreme weather conditions in California are caused by “Jewish Space lasers.” As of this writing, the GOP has yet to take any action against her and she is expected to keep her post on the House Education Committee. Over the weekend she tweeted proudly about a “great” call she had with Trump.

Over the past five years, two wings of the Republican Party have emerged, the neoconservatives versus Trump’s insurgent populist wing. As long as the party was in power, the two sides were able to bridge their differences, with a few notable exceptions. Now that they’re in the minority, things are much more complicated.

And the divide will likely get starker in the coming weeks, as one wing of the party seeks to jettison Trump and his legacy in favor of more traditional conservative figures, while another, much larger wing seeks to hold on to Trump’s base of support ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Biden Sends Mixed Messages on Iran

The Biden administration’s appointment of Rob Malley as United States special envoy for Iran sent a conflicting message to Jerusalem. On the one hand, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said last week during his confirmation hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the United States would not return to compliance with the terms of JCPOA until Iran did.

That is, the US expects Iran to take the first step — to lay off on the accelerated uranium enrichment, allow international inspectors into their nuclear facilities, etc. Only then will the US honor its commitments under the deal, and even that only as an intermediate step while negotiations take place for an improved version of the deal that would address Iran’s terror sponsorship and ballistic missile program. The Iranians, of course, want things to work for their benefit — first, let America lift the sanctions, then they’ll return to the deal.

On the other hand, now comes the appointment of Malley, who was one of the lead negotiators of the JCPOA under Obama. This is a gesture of appeasement to the Islamic Republic, as Malley is known for his desire to reach a diplomatic resolution with Iran. In other words, you can’t signal on the one hand the nuclear deal isn’t a priority and that it’s up to Iran to make the first move, and on the other hand appoint someone who’s interested in pressing a quick diplomatic solution.

Senator Tom Cotton called the appointment “troubling” in a tweet, and pointed to Malley’s “long track record of sympathy for the Iranian regime.” Israel advocates point out that after the failure of the 2000 Camp David summit, Malley, then an aide to Bill Clinton, wrote an article arguing that the blame shouldn’t be laid squarely on Yasser Arafat. That article, as well as his role as one of the architects of the JCPOA, made him a red flag in Republican circles and even among the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, especially given the sharp contrast between Malley and his predecessors Brian Hook and Eliot Abrams.

A number of diplomats, including Dennis Ross, defended Malley and argued that his role in the nuclear deal doesn’t imply animus toward Israel: he’s a professional who was given a mission by the Obama administration — draw up a deal with Iran — and he fulfilled it.

Either way, Israel will have to be smart in its dealings with Biden, who now controls both chambers of Congress, and try to influence the next deal before it’s signed, and not after it becomes a fait accompli. According to reports in the Israeli press, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen flew to Washington again to try to coordinate moves with the new administration. This urgency on the Israeli side comes after National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan signaled that the Biden administration remains bent on the JCPOA as the basis for its Iran policy.

Biden may have his hands full with managing the vaccine drive, but his foreign policy team is working round the clock to reopen diplomatic channels with Iran.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 847)