RealClearPolitics reporter says Freedom Caucus shows how much GOP changed under Trump

Philip Wegmann, a White House reporter for RealClearPolitics, laid out how the Republican Party has evolved in the Trump era through the lens of a statement from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.

Wegmann, during a Monday appearance on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” reacted to Biggs claiming that former President Trump will be “back in the presidency, returned to us” by 2024 “if not sooner,” contending that the statement illustrated how GOP has changed over the years.

Rep. Andy Biggs claims Donald Trump will return to the presidency in 2024 “if not sooner” pic.twitter.com/ld3s0FMvR8

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“Remember what the House Freedom Caucus is. Those are the sort of insurgents who held Paul Ryan’s feet to the fire because he wasn’t conservative enough when it came to spending in 2015 and 2016,” Wegmann said, referring to the Wisconsin Republican. “Those were the guys who basically said to the Speaker, ‘we saw your charts and graphs, and that’s not enough for us, we want you to cut more spending,’ and they made a conservative argument based off of conservative orthodoxy, about how we need to have a more conservative fiscal budget.”

“Right now, in, you know, less than a decade, that has been transformed from an argument about, you know, debt and deficit, to ‘oh hey, maybe some extra-constitutional occurrence is going to happen that’s going to bring the former president into office,’” he continued.

Trump has refused to acknowledge that last year’s election in which he lost to now-President Biden was free and fair, continuing to cast doubt on the results. 

The former president has reportedly been telling people he expects to be reinstated, possibly as early as August, despite there being no legal mechanism to bring this about.

Wegmann said Biggs’s remarks encapsulated “the changes on the right,” and made the argument for why his remarks cannot be ignored.

“I think that that shows, sort of, the changes on the right. And what Biggs said right there was frankly, you know, too crazy for someone like former Vice President Mike Pence, but now, you know, you can’t ignore it because Biggs is actually chairman of a non-inconsequential block of congressmen in the House,” he said.

Watch more of Wegmann’s interview above.