Republican spats provide some political respite for Joe Biden

Friction in the GOP has taken some heat off the US president and his party’s own infighting, writes Chris Stevenson

Joe Biden speaks at the White House (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

After weeks of Joe Biden facing digs from Republicans about divisions in the Democratic Party over policy priorities, the shoe is now on the other foot. The Republican National Committee (RNC) voted on Friday to formally censure two of their own members in the House of Representatives, Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Why? The pair are the only two from the GOP on a congressional select committee investigating the riots at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

The measure was passed at the RNC’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City, which brought together the committee’s 168 members. It read that the party would “immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party for their behaviour, which has been destructive to the institution of the US House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic”.

In a statement ahead of the vote, Cheney made clear that the party is in thrall to Donald Trump. She said Republican leaders “have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon January 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy”.