A Knives-Out House Primary: MAGA in Microcosm

Plus: Ronny Jackson joins the Biden-is-on-drugs brigade.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

It’s been one week since Virginia held its primaries for congressional races, and one of them remains up in the air. In Virginia’s 5th district, the Republican nomination to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives has turned into a scale model of the larger MAGA universe: The incumbent is declaring foul play and demanding recounts while the challenger (and likely winner) has prematurely declared victory and is now claiming “it is time to put our differences aside.”

Bob Good, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, drew a primary challenge from State Sen. John McGuire because Good made a major political miscalculation by endorsing Ron DeSantis over Donald Trump in the presidential primary, and he followed this up by being caught in a leaked recording saying in private that Trump might not be the most formidable presidential candidate. Trump happily backed Good’s challenger while Good’s colleagues in the House either maintained fearful reticence or simply shivved him in the final hours.

Good’s vote total briefly appeared to surge ahead of McGuire a few times during the election-night counting, but it now looks like just a few hundred votes have tipped the nomination in McGuire’s favor. But soon after polls closed and before these numbers had firmed up, McGuire had already declared himself the winner, and since then, he has behaved as though the nomination is officially his: He’s hitting the campaign trail. He’s posting Ronald Reagan quotes on Facebook. He’s unbothered, moisturized, in his lane, etc.

But it’s not settled. The Associated Press still lists the race as too close to call, citing McGuire’s 0.6 percent lead—a mere 373 out of around 63,000 votes. The tiny margin almost ensures that Good’s demand for a recount will be met, although it remains just above the 0.5 percent-or-less threshold for it to be funded by the state rather than the candidate. That means Good is also being forced to seek donations to fund a recount, adding indignity to injury. 

As you might guess, the incumbent is not handling things well. In place of lofty Reagan quotes, he’s been posting conspiracy theories online to sow doubt about the validity of McGuire’s victory.

While on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast pleading for donations to fund a recount, Good demanded that the election results not be certified: 

Bottom line is, we can’t certify this election. There’s great concern of inappropriate activity relative to the biggest city in the district, Lynchburg city, they did not secure their drop boxes. There’s no accountability for when those boxes were open. They were apparently left to be stuffed for two or three days after the election. There’s no accountability for who opened those how many ballots came out, and actually we’ve had both sides in the city council races, those supporting me and those supporting my opponent, who’ve acknowledged the lack of integrity, lack of security with the drop boxes in Lynchburg—again, the biggest city in the district. I won that city, but we didn’t win it by the margin we thought we would, apparently. 

The last line in that excerpt is especially Trumpian: Good feels entitled to win and cannot conceive of a non-fraudulent scenario in which he doesn’t. 

Monday evening, Axios published several quotes from House Republicans relishing Good’s loss and calling him a “loser” who needs to move on and concede the race. Quite a few anonymous House Republicans used obscenities to express their disdain for Good, and some even put their vitriol on the record. A quote from Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) stuck out:

If Bob had spent more time working for America and less time trying to dictate to other members of Congress how we could vote for our constituents, we would not be having this conversation. He is a bully and it is time for him to go.

Van Orden could have easily been talking about Donald Trump after the 2020 election. However, he played the ball a bit differently then: The retired Navy SEAL used campaign money from his failed first run at Congress to travel to the Capitol for the Stop the Steal rally; he wandered the Capitol grounds while his fellow Trump supporters vandalized and attacked police officers inside the building.

The reactions to Good’s travails from Van Orden and the rest of the Republicans have been both pathetic and telling: When Trump challenges election results on spurious pretexts, he is fighting for Americans; when Good does it, he’s a weak loser who should stop crying wolf. 

If McGuire locks up the nomination, it is a pretty safe bet that he will win the general election in November. While Virginia’s 5th Congressional District seems to recycle their Republican representatives as a matter of routine, they haven’t elected a Democrat there since 2008.

Doctor Do Little

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas)—known to some as “Doc Ronny Johnson”—sent a letter Monday to President Joe Biden and the White House physician demanding the president submit to drug tests before and after his debate with Trump, which will take place in Atlanta Thursday night.

Excerpt from Rep. Ronny Jackson’s letter to President Biden.

Jackson wrote:

I demand that you submit to a clinically validated drug test in order to reassure the American people that you are mentally fit to serve as President and not relying on performance enhancing drugs to help you with your debate performance or on a day-to-day basis to assist you in performing your duties as President of the United States. This drug test should be administered both immediately before and after the debate and should include, but not be limited to, performance enhancing drugs. The results of these drug tests should be immediately released to the public, along with a complete list of all medications you are taking on a daily basis or have taken on an “as needed” basis, as well as any performance enhancing medications you are taking or plan to take prior to the debate.

For good measure, Jackson CCed the entire presidential cabinet. During an appearance on Fox Business, the former presidential physician said he sent the letter “because we’ve seen recently in his State of the Union address, that there was a Joe Biden that came out that was not similar at all to what we see on a day-to-day basis for the last three and a half years.”

Of course, Jackson has no evidence that Biden is on drugs of any kind, but that’s not the purpose of his letter. Its official House office letterhead notwithstanding, the document is a political stunt, and it serves two purposes: First, it creates headlines about official governmental action—it says it’s House business there, you see, in ornate script right at the top of the first page—which helps to launder the baseless conspiracy theory on which the letter is premised. Second, it poisons the well for Biden in the event he has an impressive debate performance and makes Trump look bad. Jackson’s goal, which Trump shares, is to create a no-win scenario for Biden: Either he does poorly and confirms the MAGA narrative about his decline, or he does well and confirms the MAGA narrative about his reliance on special drugs.

There is also a layer of irony (and perhaps projection) for Jackson when it comes to alleging drug abuse. A 2021 inspector general report found him to have engaged in serious misconduct, including unethical medical conduct, during his years as White House physician under Presidents Obama and Trump. Jackson often consumed alcohol with prescription sleeping medication while on the job, overprescribed medications,¹ and made drunken advances on female subordinates. The allegations torpedoed Jackson’s 2018 nomination to serve as secretary of Veterans Affairs—he withdrew from consideration after lawmakers started investigating the claims that were later documented in the report—and resulted in Jackson’s demotion by the U.S. Navy from rear admiral to captain.

The “Biden is on drugs line” became popular after his State of the Union address, during which he spoke loudly and clearly, which aren’t really things that drugs prompt. If he does a half-decent job in Thursday night’s debate, you can expect the drug accusations to be raised almost everywhere in GOP circles. 

1. Although Jackson’s name does not appear in the more recent Pentagon inspector general report that reveals how White House doctors spent years handing out pills inappropriately, the report’s timeline matches with his tenure in the job.