House Republicans ditch their day jobs to stand with Trump, while legislating languishes

Leaving Washington behind, prominent far-right House Republicans who have repeatedly thrown this Congress into chaos showed up Thursday at Donald Trump’s hush money trial to do what they do best.

They stood outside Trump Tower filming their support for the indicted former president. They filed into the Manhattan courthouse “standing back and standing by,” as Rep. Matt Gaetz put it — invoking Trump’s call to the extremist Proud Boys. They were admonished to put down their cell phones.

And the House Republicans commandeered the spotlight — much like House Speaker Mike Johnson did earlier in the week — to rant against what they called the “kangaroo court” and the “political persecution” of Trump, as their day jobs waited for their return.

“President Trump is not going anywhere,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., as hecklers interrupted.

“And we are not going anywhere either. We are here to stand with him.”

The split-screen scene between New York and D.C. provided one of the more vivid examples yet of how Republicans have tossed aside the de rigueur tasks of governing in favor of the engineered spectacle of grievance, performance and outrage that powers Trump-era American politics.

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