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WASHINGTON Two days after Christmas last year, Richard P. Donoghue, a top Justice Department official in the waning days of the Trump administration, saw an unknown number appear on his phone.

Mr. Donoghue had spent weeks fielding calls, emails and in-person requests from President Donald J. Trump and his allies, all of whom asked the Justice Department to declare, falsely, that the election was corrupt. The lame-duck president had surrounded himself with a crew of unscrupulous lawyers, conspiracy theorists, even the chief executive of MyPillow and they were stoking his election lies.

Mr. Trump had been handing out Mr. Donoghues cellphone number so that people could pass on rumors of election fraud. Who could be calling him now?

It turned out to be a member of Congress: Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, who began pressing the presidents case. Mr. Perry said he had compiled a dossier of voter fraud allegations that the department needed to vet. Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department lawyer who had found favor with Mr. Trump, could do something about the presidents claims, Mr. Perry said, even if others in the department would not.

The message was delivered by an obscure lawmaker who was doing Mr. Trumps bidding. Justice Department officials viewed it as outrageous political pressure from a White House that had become consumed by conspiracy theories.

It was also one example of how a half-dozen right-wing members of Congress became key foot soldiers in Mr. Trumps effort to overturn the election, according to dozens of interviews and a review of hundreds of pages of congressional testimony about the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The lawmakers all of them members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus worked closely with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, whose central role in Mr. Trumps efforts to overturn a democratic election is coming into focus as the congressional investigation into Jan. 6 gains traction.

The men were not alone in their efforts most Republican lawmakers fell in line behind Mr. Trumps false claims of fraud, at least rhetorically but this circle moved well beyond words and into action. They bombarded the Justice Department with dubious claims of voting irregularities. They pressured members of state legislatures to conduct audits that would cast doubt on the election results. They plotted to disrupt the certification on Jan. 6 of Joseph R. Biden Jr.s victory.

There was Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the pugnacious former wrestler who bolstered his national profile by defending Mr. Trump on cable television; Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, whose political ascent was padded by a $10 million sweepstakes win; and Representative Paul Gosar, an Arizona dentist who trafficked in conspiracy theories, spoke at a white nationalist rally and posted an animated video that depicted him killing Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.

They were joined by Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, who was known for fiery speeches delivered to an empty House chamber and unsuccessfully sued Vice President Mike Pence over his refusal to interfere in the election certification; and Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, a lawyer who rode the Tea Party wave to Congress and was later sued by a Democratic congressman for inciting the Jan. 6 riot.

Mr. Perry, a former Army helicopter pilot who is close to Mr. Jordan and Mr. Meadows, acted as a de facto sergeant. He coordinated many of the efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office, including a plan to replace the acting attorney general with a more compliant official. His colleagues call him General Perry.

Mr. Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina who co-founded the Freedom Caucus in 2015, knew the six lawmakers well. His role as Mr. Trumps right-hand man helped to remarkably empower the group in the presidents final, chaotic weeks in office.

In his book, The Chiefs Chief, Mr. Meadows insisted that he and Mr. Trump were simply trying to unfurl serious claims of election fraud. All he wanted was time to get to the bottom of what really happened and get a fair count, Mr. Meadows wrote.

Congressional Republicans have fought the Jan. 6 committees investigation at every turn, but it is increasingly clear that Mr. Trump relied on the lawmakers to help his attempts to retain power. When Justice Department officials said they could not find evidence of widespread fraud, Mr. Trump was unconcerned: Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen, he said, according to Mr. Donoghues notes of the call.

On Nov. 9, two days after The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Biden, crisis meetings were underway at Trump campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va.

Mr. Perry and Mr. Jordan huddled with senior White House officials, including Mr. Meadows; Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser; Bill Stepien, the campaign manager; and Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary.

According to two people familiar with the meetings, which have not been previously reported, the group settled on a strategy that would become a blueprint for Mr. Trumps supporters in Congress: Hammer home the idea that the election was tainted, announce legal actions being taken by the campaign, and bolster the case with allegations of fraud.

At a news conference later that day, Ms. McEnany delivered the message.

This election is not over, she said. Far from it.

Mr. Jordans spokesman said that the meeting was to discuss media strategy, not to overturn the election.

On cable television and radio shows and at rallies, the lawmakers used unproved fraud claims to promote the idea that the election had been stolen. Mr. Brooks said he would never vote to certify Mr. Trumps loss. Mr. Jordan told Fox News that ballots were counted in Pennsylvania after the election, contrary to state law. Mr. Gohmert claimed in Philadelphia that there was rampant voter fraud and later said on YouTube that the U.S. military had seized computer servers in Germany used to flip American votes.

Mr. Gosar embraced the fraud claims so closely that his chief of staff, Tom Van Flein, rushed to an airplane hangar parking lot in Phoenix after a conspiracy theory began circulating that a suspicious jet carrying ballots from South Korea was about to land, perhaps in a bid to steal the election from Mr. Trump, according to court documents filed by one of the participants. The claim turned out to be baseless.

Mr. Van Flein did not respond to detailed questions about the episode.

Even as the fraud claims grew increasingly outlandish, Attorney General William P. Barr authorized federal prosecutors to look into substantial allegations of voting irregularities. Critics inside and outside the Justice Department slammed the move, saying it went against years of the departments norms and chipped away at its credibility. But Mr. Barr privately told advisers that ignoring the allegations no matter how implausible would undermine faith in the election, according to Mr. Donoghues testimony.

And in any event, administration officials and lawmakers believed the claims would have little effect on the peaceful transfer of power to Mr. Biden from Mr. Trump, according to multiple former officials.

Mainstream Republicans like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said on Nov. 9 that Mr. Trump had a right to investigate allegations of irregularities, A few legal inquiries from the president do not exactly spell the end of the Republic, Mr. McConnell said.

On Dec. 1, 2020, Mr. Barr said publicly what he knew to be true: The Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread election fraud. Mr. Biden was the lawful winner.

The attorney generals declaration seemed only to energize the six lawmakers. Mr. Gohmert suggested that the F.B.I. in Washington could not be trusted to investigate election fraud. Mr. Biggs said that Mr. Trumps allies needed the imprimatur, quite frankly of the D.O.J., to win their lawsuits claiming fraud.

They turned their attention to Jan. 6, when Mr. Pence was to officially certify Mr. Bidens victory. Mr. Jordan, asked if the president should concede, replied, No way.

The lawmakers started drumming up support to derail the transfer of power.

Mr. Gohmert sued Mr. Pence in an attempt to force him to nullify the results of the election. Mr. Perry circulated a letter written by Pennsylvania state legislators to Mr. McConnell and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, asking Congress to delay certification. Im obliged to concur, Mr. Perry wrote.

Mr. Meadows remained the key leader. When disputes broke out among organizers of the pro-Trump Stop the Steal rallies, he stepped in to mediate, according to two organizers, Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lynn Lawrence.

In one case, Mr. Meadows helped settle a feud about whether to have one or two rallies on Jan. 6. The organizers decided that Mr. Trump would make what amounted to an opening statement about election fraud during his speech at the Ellipse, then the lawmakers would rise in succession during the congressional proceeding and present evidence they had gathered of purported fraud.

(That plan was ultimately derailed by the attack on Congress, Mr. Stockton said.)

On Dec. 21, Mr. Trump met with members of the Freedom Caucus to discuss their plans. Mr. Jordan, Mr. Gosar, Mr. Biggs, Mr. Brooks and Mr. Meadows were there.

This sedition will be stopped, Mr. Gosar wrote on Twitter.

Asked about such meetings, Mr. Gosars chief of staff said the congressman and his colleagues have and had every right to attend rallies and speeches.

None of the members could have anticipated what occurred (on Jan. 6), Mr. Van Flein added.

Mr. Perry was finding ways to exert pressure on the Justice Department. He introduced Mr. Trump to Mr. Clark, the acting head of the departments civil division who became one of the Stop the Steal movements most ardent supporters.

Then, after Christmas, Mr. Perry called Mr. Donoghue to share his voter fraud dossier, which focused on unfounded election fraud claims in Pennsylvania.

I had never heard of him before that day, Mr. Donoghue would later testify to Senate investigators. He assumed that Mr. Trump had given Mr. Perry his personal cellphone number, as the president had done with others who were eager to pressure Justice Department officials to support the false idea of a rigged election.

Mark Meadows. Mr. Trumps chief of staff, who initially provided the panel with a trove of documents that showed the extent of his rolein the efforts to overturn the election, is now refusing to cooperate. The House voted to recommend holding Mr. Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress.

Republican congressmen. Scott Perry, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert and Mo Brooks, working closely with Mr. Meadows, becamekey in the effort to overturn the election. The panel has signaled that it will investigate the role of members of Congress.

Fox News anchors. Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade texted Mr. Meadowsduring the Jan. 6 riot urging him to persuade Mr. Trump to makean effort to stop it. The texts were part of the material that Mr. Meadows had turned over to the panel.

Mr. Donoghue passed the dossier on to Scott Brady, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, with a note saying for whatever it may be worth.

Mr. Brady determined the allegations were not well founded, like so much of the flimsy evidence that the Trump campaign had dug up.

On Jan. 5, Mr. Jordan was still pushing.

That day, he forwarded Mr. Meadows a text message he had received from a lawyer and former Pentagon inspector general outlining a legal strategy to overturn the election.

On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence, the text read.

On Jan. 6, Washington was overcast and breezy as thousands of people gathered at the Ellipse to hear Mr. Trump and his allies spread a lie that has become a rallying cry in the months since: that the election was stolen from them in plain view.

Mr. Brooks, wearing body armor, took the stage in the morning, saying he was speaking at the behest of the White House. The crowd began to swell.

Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass, Mr. Brooks said. Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?

Just before noon, Mr. Pence released a letter that said he would not block certification. The power to choose the president, he said, belonged to the American people, and to them alone.

Mr. Trump approached the dais soon after and said the vice president did not have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution.

We will never give up, Mr. Trump said. We will never concede.

Roaring their approval, many in the crowd began the walk down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol, where the certification proceeding was underway. Amped up by the speakers at the rally, the crowd taunted the officers who guarded the Capitol and pushed toward the buildings staircases and entry points, eventually breaching security along the perimeter just after 1 p.m.

By this point, the six lawmakers were inside the Capitol, ready to protest the certification. Mr. Gosar was speaking at 2:16 p.m. when security forces entered the chamber because rioters were in the building.

As the melee erupted, Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, yelled to his colleagues who were planning to challenge the election: This is what youve gotten, guys.

When Mr. Jordan tried to help Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, move to safety, she smacked his hand away, according to a congressional aide briefed on the exchange.

Get away from me, she told him. You fucking did this.

A spokesman for Mr. Jordan disputed parts of the account, saying that Ms. Cheney did not curse at the congressman or slap him.

The back-and-forth was reported earlier by the Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker in their book I Alone Can Fix It.

Of the six lawmakers, only Mr. Gosar and Mr. Jordan responded to requests for comment for this article, through their spokespeople.

Mr. Perry was recently elected leader of the Freedom Caucus, elevating him to an influential leadership post as Republicans could regain control of the House in 2022. The stolen election claim is now a litmus test for the party, with Mr. Trump and his allies working to oust those who refuse to back it.

All six lawmakers are poised to be key supporters should Mr. Trump maintain his political clout before the midterm and general elections. Mr. Brooks is running for Senate in Alabama, and Mr. Gohmert is running for Texas attorney general.

Some, like Mr. Jordan, are in line to become committee chairs if Republicans take back the House. After Jan. 6, Mr. Jordan has claimed that he never said the election was stolen.

In many ways, they have tried to rewrite history. Several of the men have argued that the Jan. 6 attack was akin to a tourist visit to the Capitol. Mr. Gosar cast the attackers as peaceful patriots across the country who were harassed by federal prosecutors. A Pew research poll found that nearly two-thirds of Republicans said their party should not accept elected officials who criticize Mr. Trump.

Still, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack appears to be picking up steam, voting this week to recommend that Mr. Meadows be charged with criminal contempt of Congress after he shifted from partly participating in the inquiry to waging a full-blown legal fight against the committee.

His fight is in line with Mr. Trumps directive to stonewall the inquiry.

But the committee has signaled that it will investigate the role of members of Congress.

According to one prominent witness who was interviewed by the committee, investigators are interested in the relationship between Freedom Caucus members and political activists who organized Stop the Steal rallies before and after the election.

Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said the panel would follow the facts wherever they led, including to members of Congress.

Nobody, he said, is off-limits.

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Meadows and the Band of Loyalists: How They Fought to Keep Trump in Power - The New York Times

People are stupid.

That subject line, in an email Wednesday from Donald Trump, grabbed my attention more than other fundraising messages I get several times a day from the ever-grifting former president.

Stupid people, the email said, are those who dont believe there was massive Election Fraud in 2020. To solve that fraud, Trump needed $45 from patriots like me desperately.

The man is desperate all right.

Opinion Columnist

Jackie Calmes

Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.

And yet, this losers 13-month-old delusion that he won reelection is fully embraced by millions of Americans and one of our two major parties. In fealty to his Big Lie, Republicans in 19 states have passed laws making it harder to vote and solidifying their partys control over elections, and now theyre putting partisans in local offices charged with certifying results. The prospect of chaos in the 2022 and 2024 elections is real.

Every week brings fresh evidence of Trumps danger to democracy and this week was no different. Newly disclosed text messages from yet-to-be-named House Republicans to Mark Meadows, Trumps final White House chief of staff, documented their real-time terror about the Jan. 6 insurrection they now downplay and of their collusion in schemes to overturn Joe Bidens election.

For the mainstream media, the challenge has been to convey the seriousness of this crisis to a public exhausted by politics and polarization. Covering the lie of the year like politics as normal wont cut it.

Yet as the weeks developments underscored, the far-right media ecosystem Fox News and its imitators propelled Trumps con from the start and continues to drive it. Its audience, full of the election deniers most in need of truth, gets the alternative news it wants. For them, any reporting from the mainstream media is discredited after years of Trumps anti-press rants.

Not surprising that Fox News, Newsmax and One America News didnt broadcast the public hearing Monday night of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Their viewers didnt see Rep. Liz Cheney and other members read aloud some text messages Meadows received amid the siege from frightened Republican lawmakers and Donald Trump Jr., begging Meadows to get the commander in chief to stop the attack. The pleaders included Fox celebrities Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank read what he aptly called a particularly chilling text to Meadows from a House Republican, lamenting the failure of the scheme to throw out millions of Biden votes: Yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. Im sorry nothing worked.

When Fox News finally did address the hearing on Tuesday, its hosts dismissed the texts and attacked the messengers, chiefly Cheney, a popular target for its anchors because shes stood up to Trump, which got her bounced from the House Republican leadership team in May and the Wyoming Republican Party last month.

Real journalists would have noted that the Republicans plaintive texts contradicted their efforts since Jan. 6 to play down the violence and oppose a bipartisan investigation. A real news network would have been embarrassed to have its stars exposed as such hypocrites, pleading with the White House based on the fact that the rioters were Trump loyalists and then suggesting otherwise to viewers.

Ingraham texted Meadows during the insurrection, Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy. Hours later, she was on air suggesting a discredited theory that the siege was the work of people who can only be described as antithetical to the MAGA movement, including perhaps antifa sympathizers.

The disclosure of the text messages came just a day after Chris Wallace, a respected longtime Fox News anchor, announced he was leaving. It was regrettable that he left without offering any criticism of the network, unlike two longtime conservative contributors, including my colleague Jonah Goldberg, when they recently resigned in protest.

Fox News is not the same place it was when Wallace joined it 18 years ago. Even then, its fair and balanced slogan was easily mocked. But in recent years, Fox News has become a truth-defying partisan propaganda operation led by Tucker Carlson. It is unabashedly in league with the first president ever to reject the peaceful transfer of power a former president who, Cheney suggests, could be criminally liable for his role in disrupting Congress constitutionally required count of the electoral college votes.

Cheney gets the last word, from her speech to the House Tuesday night:

Whether we tell the truth, get to the truth, and defend ourselves against it ever happening again, is the moral test of our time.

Her estranged Republican colleagues, and their enablers in conservative media, seem determined to fail that test.

@jackiekcalmes

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Calmes: Bigger holes keep appearing in the 'big lie' - Los Angeles Times

In any contract or relationship, the person whos willing to walk away holds all the leverage. That dynamic is the key to understanding Donald Trumps takeover of the Republican party writ large as well as David Perdues primary challenge against Brian Kemp for the Republican nomination for governor in Georgia, which is the same phenomenon in miniature.

Go back to the time before Trump won the Republican nomination, when the Republican establishment and conservative movement elite stood opposed to him shoulder to shoulder. That opposition seemed to many of us to present an insurmountable obstacle to Trumps election in November. But the rights complaints about Trump, however loud, contained a crucial escape hatch. They were framed almost exclusively in pragmatic terms: Trump was, as National Review put it in its scathing editorial, a menace to American conservatism. But since Democrats were also menaces to conservatism, should Trump win the nomination, it was inevitable that they would fall behind him as the lesser evil.

Now the conservative establishment is objecting to Perdues primary challenge against Kemp. Perdues campaign is utterly devoid of policy content, and serves the sole function of advancing Trumps goal of liquidating internal resistance and aligning the party behind his refusal to accept electoral defeat. Unlike Trumps 2016 candidacy, Perdues has no confounding elements of populism or reality-show entertainment in the mixture. It is laboratory-pure authoritarianism.

But Perdues conservative critics register their objections at a far shallower level. The Wall Street Journal moans that Perdues campaign is a good way to turn a major state over to the progressive left, and the GOPs biggest obstacle will be party divisions. National Reviews Jim Geraghty calls Kemp a safe bet to prevail in November as the nominee, and warns, if the party doesnt unify behind whoever wins the primary, Stacey Abrams is probably going to be the next governor of Georgia. The Washington Examiner editorializes, Perdue is a good man, and it is a shame that he is no longer in the Senate, but it is at least as much a shame to see him splitting the Republican Party in the closely contested gubernatorial race.

None of these conservatives are drawing red lines, or even framing the case in any kind of moral terms. They are merely fretting that the primary will weaken the partys hand against the greater enemy of Stacey Abrams.

Is that argument even correct? Possibly so: Maybe Perdues association with Trump would alienate enough moderate voters to supply Abrams her winning margin. Alternatively, it is possible that a Kemp nomination would be hindered by opposition from Trump, who might very well prefer that she win to the reelection of a Republican who refused to help him steal the election.

Trump and Perdue no doubt grasp the imbalance here. The pro-Kemp forces are warning of division in the event Perdue wins, but ultimately they are not themselves willing to split from their party. Both factions are threatening schism, but only the Trumpian threat has credibility.

This imbalance in willpower has characterized the factional fights within the party for more than half a century. Ive recommended Rule and Ruin, Geoffrey Kabaservices history of the demise of the GOPs moderate wing, many times, though perhaps not often enough. The conservatives cared more about control of the party (rule) than the risk of losing (ruin). The moderates may have wished to rule, but were largely unwilling to threaten party unity.

Trumps long post-election purge is prevailing because of this same asymmetry of willpower. He is able to grasp that his remaining intraparty critics dont actually care about democracy. They merely want to win. His strategy is to force them to choose, knowing full well what their answer will be in the end.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

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Trump Keeps Beating His Republican Enemies Because Hes Willing to Break the Party - New York Magazine

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EXCLUSIVE: As she crisscrosses the country helping fellow Republicans running in next year's midterm elections, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is spotlighting a new conservative roadmap for the 2022 election cycle.

Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during President Trump's administration, is releasing her first policy book, which is titled "American Strength: Conservative Solutions Worth Fighting For."'

NIKKI HALEY ON MULTIPLE MISSIONS TO HELP THE GOP WIN BIG IN 2022

The book, shared first with Fox News on Wednesday, includes a broad coalition of conservative voices, with both domestic and foreign policy chapters written by friends of Haley who are considered experts in their fields. Haley, whom pundits view as a potential 2024 Republican presidential contender, is releasing the book through her Stand for America nonprofit advocacy organization.

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is spotlighting a new conservative roadmap for the 2022 election cycle in a new book titled "American Strength: Conservative Solutions Worth Fighting For."

"My greatest passion is lifting people up," Haley writes in her introduction to the domestic section of the book. "So it's frustrating to see that in America today, there are so many barriers blocking the way, with new ones arising at a worrying pace."

Among those contributing to the domestic section of the book are fellow South Carolinian Sen. Tim Scott, who penned a chapter titled "A Plan for Safety and Healing in America." Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania wrote a chapter titled "Our National Debt: Why Should We Care and What Can We Do About It?" And Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska penned a chapter on "An Energy, Jobs, and Climate Plan That Strengthens America."

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT NIKKI HALEY

The domestic portion of the book also includes a chapter titled "Bidens Border Crisis" by Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas; "Restoring Life in a Post-Roe America: A Policy Vision," by Marjorie Dannenfelser, a leader of the anti-abortion movement; and "The Tragedy of American Education," which was penned by popular conservative talk radio host and writer Dennis Prager.

Former GOP Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, addresses the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual leadership meeting, on Nov. 6, 2021, in Las Vegas. (Fox News)

Throughout her domestic introduction, Haley emphasizes her goal of empowering people rather than the federal government.

"Theres no combination of elected or unelected experts, elites and do-gooders who are smarter than the American people. The more than 330 million women and men and children who call America home are infinitely creative and capable of creating opportunities for themselves and their communities. They simply need the chance to prove it by pursuing their passions, something socialism only stifles," Haley writes.

And she stresses that "instead of giving Washington control over people, we should be giving the people control over their own lives and futures, like I did as governor of South Carolina."

HALEY, AT MAJOR GOP CONFAB, TARGETS BIDEN ADMINISTRATION ON FOREIGN POLICY

Haley, striking a chord thats extremely popular with conservative voters, argues that "it's deeply worrying that anger and hatred toward America are growing. This problem runs deeper than so-called wokeism, and it's bigger than critical race theory. The moment we reject the principles at America's heart and accept the lie that our country is racist and rotten to the core, we throw away any chance of national progress."

She notes that "by all means, let's root out discrimination and injustice wherever they exist, and lets do it by applying America's principles more fully. Take it from me, the first female governor of South Carolina and the first minority female governor in the United States: America is not a racist country."

Nikki Haley speaks during a campaign event for Glenn Youngkin, on July 14, 2021, in McLean, Virginia. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The foreign policy section of the book includes chapters written by retired general H.R. McMaster, who served as national security adviser during the Trump administration; former ambassador Paula Dobriansky, a top State Department official during President George W. Bush's administration; and John Charles Hagee, a leading pastor and televangelist.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Haley, in introducing the foreign policy section, notes that "protecting America from so many threats requires military strength." But she adds that "another kind of strength is needed even more: moral strength. Its the only way to win the clash of civilizations."

And she emphasizes that "the rest of the world looks to our example. When we speak, they listen. When we lead, they follow. When we stand for whats right, we not only make our people safer and more secure, we make the world a better place too."

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Nikki Haley's new book showcases 2022 conservative roadmap and vision for future of Republican Party - Fox News

In a world where elected Republicans were not terrified of the most extreme elements of their base, the response to Representative Lauren Boeberts open Islamophobia would have been swift public condemnation. We do not live in that world.

Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the House Republicans, has not denounced Boeberts comments comparing Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota to a suicide bomber. He knows that scolding her could anger the base, divide his caucus, and threaten his dream of someday being crowned speaker of the House. Other congressional Republicans recognize this reality too, which is why so few of them denounced Boeberts jihad squad comments or Representative Paul Gosars creepy video in which he murders an anime version of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. So far, only a handful of Republican lawmakers have explicitly condemned these incidents, including two well-known Trump critics: Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, whos retiring in the face of a primary challenge, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, whose home-state Republican Party no longer recognizes her as a member.

Another was freshman Republican Nancy Mace. On CNN this week, the South Carolina lawmaker called Boeberts rhetoric disgusting. Two weeks ago, she told MSNBC that Gosars video was reprehensible (though she did not vote to censure him). Mace is not exactly a member of the anti-Trump caucus; her position in the GOP ecosystem is harder to nail down. After the January 6 Capitol riot, Mace said that Donald Trump had no future in the Republican Party. She quickly backed away from that position, though, and has spent the rest of the year engaging in petty fights with Ocasio-Cortez, shouting about antifa, and going on Fox News to riff on GOP talking points. This summer, Mace voted to oust Liz Cheney from her leadership position after Cheney was critical of Trump. In the past few months, Mace has seemed to accept the reality that not only is there a role for Trump in her party, but also that he is still its unrivaled leader.

Mace, in other words, appeared to have fallen back in line. So why, then, has she chosen to help police her partys most Trumpian figures? I asked her office and didnt hear back. But knowing the answer to this question could help illuminate why so few Republicans have taken the kinds of risks that she has. I profiled Mace in July, and Ive followed her career closely. She could have any number of motivations, but my reporting points to one in particular.

Read: How a rising Trump critic lost her nerve

Its possible that Mace is genuinely disgusted by Boeberts anti-Muslim comments. Perhaps her gut reaction was to address them head-on. Sometimes politicians do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do. That same impulse could be what drove Mace to criticize Trump after January 6, before she seemed to change her mind.

More cynically, Mace might see some sort of political benefit here. Her district, which runs from Charleston to Hilton Head, isnt quite as conservative as the rest of South Carolina. Her voters are a bit more socially moderate and environmentally conscious, and Mace ran on a platform that didnt line up neatly with that of her Republican peers. She might have figured that the voters in her district would be turned off by Boeberts Islamophobia, and that they would give her credit for calling it out. Inserting herself in Twitter spats is probably good for fundraising too: Maces condemnation of Boebert has already been retweeted by at least one Democratic legislator, who held up her tweet as an example of a GOP lawmaker caught being good and recommended that people read Maces book. In the coming weeks, Mace might see an ensuing increase in donations. Shes already expecting at least one primary challenge next year, so she needs all the financial help she can get.

Feel free to believe either of those theories. But something else could also be at work here. Mace is charismatic, smart, and ambitious, and it must be disheartening for her to be constantly overshadowed by colleagues who traffic in racism and conspiracy theories about Jewish space lasers. It must be exhausting, having to fight for attention while people like Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene become the new faces of the American right. Getting involved in this beefor any beefis perhaps the best way for Nancy Mace to get her name out there. Conflict makes for good stories; it attracts the attention of TV producers and Atlantic editors. Throwing punches is a good way for a neglected politician to get ahead. Mace would be far from the first politician to have recognized this.

Maces political evolution has been difficult to track. She cannot be perfectly categorized as a moderate Republican, nor as apro-Trump member. But one thing seems clear: She recognizes that that the Republican base wants AOC-type celebrities in office, one South Carolina GOP consultant told me earlier this year. A Republican commentator from her home state told me that he wished Mace would keep her head down. You have the option of not being available for comment or [not] taking their call, he said. She seems to be addicted to the cable-news scene. A local Democratic strategist told me that hed rarely seen a lawmaker positioning themselves so openly for a shot at stardom. She wants to grow her list and go on TV every day and raise money and sell books. She isnt thinking about staying in the House, he said. Shes thinking about whats next. Maces decision to participate in my July profile of her is more evidence for this theory. Most politicians dont agree to spend time with reporters, let alone go to the gun range with them, unless they see some sort of advantage to doing so. A politician who grants that sort of access to a reporter may not like the resulting story, but when youre a freshman member of Congress who wants to be well-known, all publicity is good publicity.

Read: The Texas Republican asking his party to just stop

Maybe in the end, Maces motive for calling out Boebert and Gosars bad behavior doesnt matter; maybe everyone should appreciate the simple fact that she is doing it. But if youre looking for hopeful signs that the Republican caucus has grown more willing to crack down on its most extreme members, Maces critiques of her peers are not compelling evidence.

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Nancy Mace and the Hunt for the Republican Spotlight - The Atlantic