Two members of Congress spoke at a white nationalist convention. These corporations are supporting their reelection.
Over the weekend, two members of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ), addressed a white nationalist convention. A number of major corporations, including Ford, Walmart, Delta Airlines, and Deloitte, are financially supporting their reelection through PAC contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
Popular Information contacted 48 corporate PAC donors to NRCC and asked if they had concerns about their contributions being used to support the reelection of politicians who are embracing white nationalists. Popular Information also asked if they would contribute additional funds to the NRCC if the organization continued to support the reelection of Greene and Gosar. Only one corporation offered a response.
Greene and Gosar addressed the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), an event run by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Gosar addressed the conference by video while Greene appeared in person and was introduced by Fuentes. (Gosar addressed AFPAC in person last year.)
Fuentes has "gained infamy for making many anti-Semitic comments, denying the Holocaust happened, and opposing women's right to vote." The Republican Jewish Coalition calls him a "Nazi-sympathizer." Earlier this month, Fuentes said he was seeking "total Aryan victory."
At this year's AFPAC conference, Fuentes praised Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at one point asking for “a round of applause for Russia." (The crowd obliged and chanted Putin's name.) Fuentes called the United States government, by contrast, the "Great Satan." He also reprised the white nationalist slogan "you will not replace us," famously used at the 2017 white nationalist march in Charlottesville.
Despite speaking and posing for pictures with Fuentes, Greene initially claimed that she does "not know Nick Fuentes," had "never heard him speak," and was unfamiliar with "his views." But the AFPAC conference was created because Fuentes was kicked out of the larger Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for his racist views. Greene appeared very familiar with the group's origins, addressing the AFPAC crowd as "canceled Americans."
Later, on Twitter, Greene reversed course saying that she decided that she was not going "turn down the opportunity to speak to 1,200 young America First patriots because of a few off-color remarks." She criticized the "establishment" for deciding to "cancel" the white nationalist group.
Gosar had recently defended Fuentes on Gab, an alternative social media platform that caters to white nationalists.
None of this has had any impact on the NRCC, which is actively supporting Gosar and Greene. Both have pages on the NRCC website along with a prominent button to donate to their reelection campaigns.
The NRCC provides financial, strategic, and organizational support to its endorsed candidates. This support is made possible by the NRCC's donors. Popular Information contacted 48 corporate PAC donors to the NRCC since 2021. A spokesperson for Liberty Mutual, which donated $15,000 to the NRCC in June 2021, offered this response:
Last year the LibertyPAC Board determined to suspend all contributions to legislators who voted not to certify the 2020 election and any of their associated leadership PACs, at least through this election cycle. The two people identified in your inquiry are part of this group. LibertyPAC also requires multi-candidate and joint fundraising committees – including the NRCC – not to use any contributions to support these legislators for the same time period.
None of the other corporate donors to the NRCC responded. This group includes the National Association of Realtors ($120,000), Dell ($30,000), Walmart ($30,000), PriceWaterhouseCoopers ($30,000), American Airlines ($15,000), Anheuser-Busch ($15,000), AT&T ($15,000), Cigna ($15,000), Comcast ($15,000), CVS ($15,000), Deloitte ($15,000), Delta Airlines ($15,000), FedEx ($15,000), Ford ($15,000), Google ($15,000), Intel ($15,000), Johnson & Johnson ($15,000), JP Morgan ($15,000), Publix ($15,000), T-Mobile ($15,000), United Airlines ($15,000), Verizon ($15,000), Wells Fargo ($15,000), and Best Buy ($10,000).
None of these companies returned a request for comment.
Greene and Gosar's history of racism and anti-Semitism
Defending her participation in the white nationalist AFPAC conference, Greene said she was "not going to play the guilt by association game in which you demand every conservative should justify anything ever said by anyone they’ve ever shared a room with." Greene insisted she is "only responsible for what I say." But Greene has her own history of racism and anti-Semitism.
"I know a ton of white people that are as lazy and sorry and probably worse than black people," Greene said in a video shortly before joining Congress. She said that the election of Muslim women to Congress represented an "Islamic invasion" of government offices. Greene has also advanced "dangerous, antisemitic conspiracy theories," according to the Anti-Defamation League. At one point she speculated that the 2018 California wildfires were caused by space lasers controlled by the Rothschild family.
Greene made plans to form an "America First" caucus in Congress that would be base on "Anglo-Saxon political tradition." She scrapped those plans after a planning document was widely denounced as racist.
Gosar, meanwhile, has emerged as a key ally of Fuentes and his white nationalist movement. Gosar has "spread America First’s motto and projects on Twitter and written to the F.B.I. on congressional letterhead in Mr. Fuentes’s defense." Gosar "falsely suggested in 2017 that the deadly far-right rally in Charlottesville was planned by liberals and funded by George Soros."
NRCC punishes collaboration with Democrats, stays silent on white nationalists
Neither the NRCC nor its chairman, Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN), have commented on Greene and Gosar's participation in the AFPAC event.
Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), issued a general statement that did not mention Greene, Gosar, or AFPAC. "White supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry are disgusting and do not have a home in the Republican party," McDaniel said in a statement.
While the NRCC and the GOP leadership have taken no action in response to Greene and Gosar's embrace of white nationalists, they have shown the ability to condemn and withhold support for members of the House Republican Caucus.
The RNC formally censured Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) because they are participating in a bipartisan investigation of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. The resolution, which describes the January 6 attack as "ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse," states that the RNC will "immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party." Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and other top Republicans have endorsed Cheney's primary opponent. On the NRCC website, the buttons to donate to Cheney and Kinzinger have been removed.
Major corporations are supporting an organization that views collaborating with Democrats investigating January 6 as worse than collaborating with white nationalists.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar are at or near the bottom of the barrel as far as Congress is concerned. If you can't denounce them, you're basically conceding you have the wrong priorities.
The race to the bottom between MTG, Gosar, Cawthorn, Boebert, Brooks and the utterly feckless Kevin McCarthy (and a few others) seems never-ending.