On one side of the building, House Republicans are launching a full-on counter-messaging effort, including responses on social media, TV hits and conducting their own unofficial probe into Capitol security. In the Senate, GOP leadership is essentially shrugging at the hearings: Minority Whip John Thune (S.D.) indicated that he didn’t expect a formal response to the hearings and that his conference is focused elsewhere.
“It’s the future, not the past,” Thune said in a brief interview…
The cross-chamber schism goes back to even before the attack, as Republican leadership weighed whether to discourage or support challenges to the Electoral College results in Congress.
Nearly 140 House Republicans — including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Whip Steve Scalise (La.) and now-Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) — backed challenges to at least one state. By comparison, Senate GOP leaders leaned hard on their conference not to challenge state counts. In the end, only eight GOP senators voted to challenge state results.
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