The South Carolina representative also told “Meet the Press” that he regretted his support for Clarence Thomas during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991.
Page A2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 30 August 2026
RNC chair warns Democratic majority would empower antisemites; senior Democrat says impeachment isn't even the priority.
As it ran on the front
The Republican National Committee is on record, and the record is not up for the kind of casual dismissal certain quarters seem eager to give it. When the chairman says a Democratic majority in Congress represents a direct threat to the Jewish community, he's not speculating, he's forecasting, presumably off briefings the rest of us aren't privy to. That should end the conversation right there. It doesn't, because Congressman Clyburn had to go and say that if Democrats win the House, impeachment isn't going to be the priority. Fine. Sure. That's — that's actually the more alarming statement, if you think about it, because it means the danger the chairman warned about isn't urgent enough to top the agenda either, which — wait. That's not the point I was building toward.
Let me restart. The threat is real because the RNC says it's real, and organizations don't say things unless they're real, a rule I have just invented and am now stuck defending. Clyburn's remark was supposed to be the smoking gun, a Democrat on record deprioritizing the very danger the chairman flagged, except what he actually deprioritized was impeachment, a different noun entirely, and I've been treating them as interchangeable for four sentences now, which, in fairness, is a Tuesday for me.…
…(cont) Here's the version I wasn't supposed to say out loud: one man issued a maximal warning about what power in the wrong hands looks like, and the man he was warning about responded by naming the single least maximal item on his to-do list. Impeachment. Not even that. If the threat matched the rhetoric, the response would look bigger than "not our first move," and it doesn't, and I've now spent a column noticing that instead of explaining it away, which was the assignment.
I'll say this much for the RNC, because someone has to: fear is cheaper to produce than a platform, it doesn't need a budget line, and it polls fine in a vacuum. The vacuum is the problem. Every time someone answers the fear out loud, in public, on the record, the fear gets smaller, not bigger, and I don't have a talking point for that. I'll have one by next week. I always do.
“They tell you Congress is one election from handing power to antisemites, and in the same breath the guy they're warning about says impeachment isn't even on his list — that's not a rebuttal, that's the tell. Fear is the only product the RNC has to sell when the platform's empty, and it moves off the shelf every cycle. Watch who cashes the check when the fear doesn't pan out.”
“Look, when the chairman flags a direct threat, you take that seriously, I trust the process even without the classified version. Clyburn saying impeachment's not the priority actually proves the point, it shows restraint, which is exactly what you'd expect from someone hiding — no, that's not what I meant to imply, strike that.”
The receipts
Antisemitic incidents in 2025: 6,274 - the third-highest year since tracking began in 1979, with assaults at a record high ADL, 2025 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents
RNC chair claims Dem majority in Congress will put antisemites in power: ‘Direct threat to the Jewish community’A Democratic takeover of Congress will put antisemites in power and pose a "direct threat to the Jewish community," Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters claims.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.