MAGA Republicans stooped to new lows this week with their extremism, hypocrisy, chaos, and — as President Biden would call it — malarkey. In case you missed it: Donald Trump tanked the bipartisan immigration deal in hopes of bolstering his campaign; MAGA Mike Johnson claimed border patrol members only endorsed the immigration bill so they could get a pay raise; House Republicans admit they had a terrible week for a bunch of reasons; the House Republican impeachment stunt failed in an embarrassing fashion.

Also this week: Trump lied about endorsing Sen. Lankford in his last election; Trump is reportedly pushing out RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel after a disastrous streak of terrible fundraising numbers; Trump doubled down on his promise to be a dictator on day one; Nikki Haley admitted that the Republican Party is chaotic; in the latest from the extreme MAGA veepstakes, Rep. Elise Stefanik suggested that she would’ve overturned the 2020 election; and Tim Scott is blaming the world for a problem he chose not to solve.

Donald Trump is begging to be blamed for torpedoing a bipartisan immigration bill because he puts himself above the American people.

Trump: “Please blame it on me.”

Trump: “I think [Republicans] are making a terrible mistake if they vote for the bill.”

MAGA Mike Johnson was so eager to defend Trump’s immigration bill bullying that he suggested the Border Patrol union only supports the bill because it includes a bigger pay day.

Laura Ingraham: “The Border Patrol union has come out and said the bill is better than the status quo. Does that affect your thinking on this?”

Johnson: “Well, I think it does have something to do with the pay structure that’s in the bill. I understand that they’re desperate for measures that will assist.”

Republicans in Congress stumbled their way throughout a disastrous week of embarrassments.Rep. Dan Crenshaw: “If we have a bill that, on net, significantly decreases illegal immigration, and we sabotage that, that is inconsistent with what we told our voters we would do.”

Igor Bobic, HuffPost: “GOP Sen. Cramer calls impeaching Mayorkas ‘the dumbest exercise and use of time’

‘What’s rich to me is the speaker says the [border] bill in the Senate is… dead on arrival. And then they proceed impeaching a cabinet secretary, which is obviously dead on arrival.’”

Rep. Troy Nehls: “I had many people reach out to me via text message and say, ‘What the hell are you guys doing up there?’ … We’re not acting like we’re in the majority.”

Rep. Thomas Massie: “Name one thing that’s improved under the new Speaker.”

Stephen Neukam: “Message from senior GOP aide: ‘If we lose the Israel vote after losing Mayorkas impeachment: VACATE.’”

Members of the House GOP chaos conference continue to flip flop on the border whenever it benefits them politically. 

Rep. Tom Emmer: “Why does it have to be a political issue when it’s the right thing to do to seal our own border and make sure that good people that want to come here for the right reasons are able to come here?”

Rep. Chip Roy: “It’s time to act with urgency. Urgency means not waiting for the next election.”

Rep. Michael McCaul: “I think [the border] is a very urgent problem. We can’t wait a year.”

Rep. Patrick McHenry: “We have bipartisan support… Take the moment, man. Take the policy win.”

House Republicans continue to pay more attention to failed political stunts than working to secure the border. CNN: “House vote to impeach Mayorkas fails in stunning defeat for Republican leaders”

Jake Sherman, Punchbowl News: “I’ve seen a lot of embarrassing days for different House Republican leadership teams. This one is pretty high on the list.”

CNN: “Once Mike Johnson’s speakership was merely implausible. Now it looks incompetent. The rookie Republican leader – already struggling to wield a tiny, extreme and malfunctioning majority – suffered a spectacular embarrassment on Tuesday night in a failed

Trump lied about endorsing immigration bill co-author Sen. James Lankford last cycle, despite the proof he did. 

Trump: “Just to correct the record, I did not endorse Senator Lankford. I didn’t do it.”  

Trump: 

It’s been a bad week for Ronna McDaniel — the RNC chair is reportedly stepping down in the wake of tensions with Trump and historic fundraising failures.

Trump: “There’ll probably be some changes made.” 

CNN: “RNC Chair McDaniel has offered to step down following South Carolina primary”

“McDaniel’s offer to resign comes as tensions between Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, and the RNC have heightened in recent days and as the former president’s team has begun quietly floating names to replace her.”

Fox News: “According to year-end reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) this week, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) holds nearly three times the cash on hand reported by the Republican National Committee (RNC), and brought in nearly three times as much fundraising in the final month of 2023.”

In an interview with Maria Baritromo, Trump doubled (tripled? quadrupled?) down on his plan to be a dictator for a day if reelected. 

Trump: “Absolutely, I’m going to be a dictator for one day.”

You know House Republicans’ chaos and incompetence is bad when even Nikki Haley is willing to recognize that they are an insane chaos caucus.

Haley: “Republicans keep doing the same thing and getting the same result: chaos. That’s the definition of insanity. 

This week:
❌RNC imploded
❌GOP House can’t pass ANYTHING
❌Trump lost another court case & threw another temper tantrum

A vote for Trump is a vote for more chaos.”

In the latest from the Trump veepstakes, Rep. Elise Stefanik suggested she would’ve overturned the 2020 election results on the day of the January 6 insurrection. 

Collins: “What would you have done if you were vice president on January 6?”

Trump VP candidate Stefanik: “I would not have done what Mike Pence did.”

If Tim Scott is upset about Congress struggling to implement changes to secure the border, he needs to look in the mirror.

Scott: “We should first secure our southern border.”

Annie Karni, New York Times: “Endless loop: Tim Scott says he is opposed to the stand-alone foreign aid bill because ‘we should first secure our southern border.’ He opposed the deal that included efforts to do that, parroting Trump talking points that it didn’t do enough.”

Fox News: “Sen. Tim Scott a ‘Hades no’ on Senate border, immigration deal”