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      Will Republicans back a commission to investigate the Capitol breach?

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      House Democrats are poised to adopt legislation to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, in a move that will force Republicans to either embrace an inquiry that could embarrass Donald Trump – or turn a blind eye to a deadly insurrection.The proposal, endorsed by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, would establish a 10-member commission evenly split between Democrats and Republicans – and allow the top ranking members from each party to jointly authorize subpoenas, in addition to doing so by majority vote.Crucially, it would focus narrowly on facts and causes relating to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January by a pro-Trump mob and the interference with the peaceful transition of power. Five people died amid scenes of chaos and violence that shocked the US and the world.Whether Democrats can seize the moment and push the legislation through Congress remains unclear. The Democratic-led House is likely to swiftly adopt the bill, but it could falter in the 50-50 Senate should Republicans insist on a commission with a mandate to investigate their own political priorities.The push from Pelosi and senior House Democrats underscores their resolve to investigate Trump and hold him accountable for what they consider to be his role in inciting a deadly insurrection that shook the core of American democracy.Complicating matters is the fact that the current Congress is far more polarised than it was after the September 11 attacks, with the parties sceptical of each other’s motives. Democrats see some Republicans as complicit in fuelling the 6 January attack by perpetuating lies about a stolen election.While some Republicans, including Liz Cheney, have backed the idea of a commission, most of the party’s lawmakers say they won’t accept a proposal that could give Democrats the upper hand in determining the course and conclusions of the commission’s work.The proposal for the commission is modelled closely on the commission Congress established in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, where recommendations led to reshaping of congressional oversight authority and intelligence gathering.Negotiations over creating a commission had been stalled for months over disagreements about the panel’s structure and scope, until the top Democrat on the House homeland security committee, Bennie Thompson, and the top Republican, John Katko, announced a bipartisan agreement on Friday.Pelosi deputised Thompson to lead talks as she felt the homeland security committee was an appropriate venue, and as Katko was one of only three House Republicans to accept Biden’s election win, impeach Trump and punish extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for endorsing executions of Democrats, according to sources familiar with discussions.The current draft of the commission proposes an equal split on membership and subpoena power, after Republicans denounced Pelosi’s initial plan that envisioned a committee with seven members appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans.But the scope of the commission is still tightly focused on 6 January, with Pelosi unwilling to entertain Republicans who want its mandate expanded to cover violence during last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality and racism.The announcement of the compromise gives House and Senate Republicans a bruising conundrum: embrace the commission, sure to embarrass Trump and spark a backlash that could jeopardise support from his voters ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, or effectively turn a blind eye to the insurrection.Democratic aides involved in the negotiations were unsure whether Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, would extend his support, the sources said, in part because members of the House GOP conference increasingly seek to downplay or even outright deny the violence that took place on 6 January.Democrats also note that McCarthy has since hired the former White House political director Brian Jack, who was involved in planning the “Stop the Steal” rally that immediately preceded the attack – raising the spectre that either McCarthy or one of his own aides could come under investigation.Liz Cheney, who was ousted from House Republican leadership this week over her repeated repudiation of Trump, told ABC McCarthy, who spoke to Trump during the attack, should “absolutely” testify before the commission, either voluntarily or via a subpoena.The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, remained mum on Friday as to whether he would endorse the commission. However, he has taken issue with its mandate, saying appointees, not House Democrats, should dictate investigation parameters.Pelosi has suggested to her leadership team in recent weeks that she would be receptive to forming a select committee to investigate the Capitol attack as a fallback, should the bill not receive sufficient support in the Senate, the sources said.But the speaker’s preference would be to create a commission, they said.Introduced two days after Trump was acquitted by Senate Republicans in his second impeachment trial, the proposal to create a commission signaled Pelosi’s intent to pursue the former president.She ran into Republican resistance, with McConnell slamming the idea as “partisan by design” and McCarthy condemning Democrats for trying to move ahead unilaterally.Even if Congress fails to create a commission, it is still likely to get some answers.Seven House committees – including judiciary, intelligence and oversight – are conducting investigations into the intelligence and security breakdowns that allowed the mob to breach the Capitol.In near-identical letters sent in March to 16 agencies across the executive branch and Congress, the committees demanded all documents and communications relevant to the certification of Biden’s election win.The investigations are similar to House Democrats’ efforts to investigate Trump during his first impeachment inquiry, when Pelosi huddled regularly with six committee chairs before the House impeached the president over the Ukraine scandal.House and Senate committees have held hearings to investigate the Capitol attack and heard from witnesses including the current and former chiefs of Capitol police and defense and national security officials.Pelosi has said all information gathered during committee hearings will serve as a key resource for either a commission or a select committee. 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      Liz Cheney regrets vote for Trump but won’t say she’ll leave Republican party

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      Liz Cheney has become the figurehead of the Never Trumpers, Republicans seeking to loosen the former president’s grip on their party, but the Wyoming congresswoman was for him in the last election.Newly removed from Republican House leadership, Cheney spoke to ABC’s This Week in an interview to be broadcast in full on Sunday.Asked if she voted for Trump in 2020, she replied: “I did.”Asked if she regretted it, she said: “I was never going to support Joe Biden and I do regret the vote. I think that it was based on policy, based on sort of substance and what I know in terms of the kinds of policies [Trump] put forward that were good for the country. But that I think it is fair to say I regret the vote.”Cheney came out against Trump after the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, by supporters he told to “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his conclusive defeat by Joe Biden was the result of mass electoral fraud.Most of the congressional GOP has stayed behind Trump but Cheney was one of 10 Republicans in the House to vote for his impeachment, on a charge of inciting an insurrection. Trump was acquitted at trial after only seven Republican senators could be persuaded to follow suit.Cheney also told ABC that Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, should either voluntarily testify before any 6 January commission about his conversation with Trump as the attack happened, or be compelled to do so.Cheney is a staunch conservative and a daughter of Dick Cheney, a former congressman, secretary of defense and vice-president. As such she is a member of a party establishment either beaten into near-silence by Trump’s harangues, like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell; vilified by Trump’s supporters, like Utah senator and 2012 nominee Mitt Romney; or simply acquiescent.Trump remains excluded from social media over his role in the Capitol riot but on Saturday he issued statements replete with rants about supposed electoral fraud and “crooked, disgusting, and very dishonest media outlets”. In one, he called McConnell a “weak and pathetic leader”.On ABC, interviewer Jonathan Karl also asked if Cheney would stay in her party should Trump decide to run for president again – as he has hinted he might – and then win the nomination in 2024.“I will do everything that I can to make sure he’s not the nominee,” Cheney said. “And, you know everything necessary to make sure that that he never gets anywhere close to the Oval Office again.”But, Karl repeated, would she remain in the party if Trump were the nominee?“I will not support him,” said Cheney. “And we’ll do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.”Some Republicans outside Congress have mooted the formation of a new conservative party. Most observers think such a move unlikely to succeed.Nonetheless the brewing civil war in Republican ranks was set to dominate the US political talk shows on Sunday.Cheney was also due to be interviewed on Fox News Sunday. Another anti-Trump House Republican, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, was booked by NBC’s Meet the Press. NBC also booked the Texas representative Dan Crenshaw, a Trump loyalist.CBS’s Face the Nation was due to feature Joni Ernst of Iowa, the only woman in Republican Senate leadership, who this week criticised the House GOP for “cancelling” Cheney. CNN’s State of the Union booked Fred Upton, a Michigan representative and moderate who has been close to Biden.Cheney’s replacement as the No 3 Republican in the House, Elise Stefanik, was due to speak to Fox Business. The New Yorker is a former moderate who swiftly moved to the hard right and gained Trump’s support.Stefanik backed a formal objection to electoral college results in Pennsylvania, one of two states Republicans challenged on the day of the Capitol riot. She indicated a willingness to challenge other states but no senator followed suit.Cheney told ABC: “I think the issue really is Donald Trump and it really is the party and whether we’re going to be a party that’s based on the truth.“I think we’ve seen consistently since the election, certainly since 6 January and in ways it has increased since 6 January, the former president’s willingness to be very aggressive in his attacks on democracy and on our electoral process.” More

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      The G.O.P.’s Big Cancellation

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      The party’s cancel mob runs wild on Capitol Hill.Mr. Potato Head is under siege.So are the Muppets, baseball and Coca-Cola.Even a horse fell victim. “It was like a cancel culture kind of thing,” the trainer of Medina Spirit told Fox News after the Kentucky Derby-winning horse failed a drug test.In the Biden era, wailing about cancel culture has emerged as a major tenet of Trumpism, a defining principle of a Republican Party far more focused on fighting culture wars than promoting any kind of policy platform.Yet in recent weeks, it has been Republicans who seem most focused on canceling ideas they don’t like. And on Wednesday morning, the G.O.P. cancel mob came for Liz Cheney.After a defiant speech on Tuesday evening, she was purged from House Republican leadership for refusing to echo Donald Trump’s lies about the election and holding him responsible for the deadly riot on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.Her extraordinary address on the House floor came immediately after Republicans finished a series of remarks condemning the cancellation of a long list of characters that included Pepé Le Pew, J.K. Rowling, Miss Piggy, Goya Foods, George Washington, “the My Pillow guy” and kids wearing MAGA hats.Ms. Cheney made only a sly reference to the irony of the moment.“I know the topic, Mr. Speaker, is cancel culture,” she said, taking her place at the lectern. “I have some thoughts about that. But tonight, I rise to discuss freedom and our constitutional duty to protect it.”Republicans were left tying themselves into knots over whether Ms. Cheney had, in fact, been canceled.“Liz Cheney was canceled today for speaking her mind and disagreeing with the narrative that President Trump has put forth,” Representative Ken Buck of Colorado said on Wednesday after her ouster.Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who built his postelection brand by casting himself in his media appearances as a victim of cancellation, disagreed.“It’ll give her, certainly, a media platform,” he said. “I don’t think it’s being canceled in terms of she’s being silenced.”Republican cancel culture isn’t limited to Ms. Cheney. At times, the party seems to be trying to cancel the truth entirely.When Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, was asked about Ms. Cheney’s replacement — Representative Elise Stefanik of New York — and her vote to object to the 2020 election results, he gave a head-spinning answer.“I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election,” Mr. McCarthy replied after leaving a meeting at the White House with President Biden on Wednesday. “I think that is all over with, sitting here with the president today.”Six days earlier, Ms. Stefanik had raised doubts about the integrity of the election in interviews with Trump allies that helped cement her status as the front-runner for Ms. Cheney’s post.In Florida and Texas, Republican officials who once praised the handling of the 2020 election in their states now argue that a widespread lack of faith in the electoral system necessitates broadly restrictive voting laws. That justification is widespread: Lawmakers in at least 33 states have cited low public confidence in election integrity in their public comments as a reason to pass bills that restrict voting.It’s also slightly dizzying: As election experts told my colleague Maggie Astor for an article this week, it was the “fear of fraud” stoked by Republicans with their false claims of voter malfeasance that eroded public trust in the 2020 results.And in a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Republicans cast the riot at the Capitol in January as little more than a normal day, rewriting what many of them personally witnessed while huddling for safety on the House floor. Several downplayed the violence of the day, describing the Trump supporters who attacked the complex as “peaceful patriots.”“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall, showed people in an orderly fashion in between the stanchions and ropes taking pictures,” Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia said. “If you didn’t know the footage was from Jan. 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”Sure, an average tourist stop that involved violently crushing police officers, stealing historic property and urinating in Nancy Pelosi’s office.There are plenty of reasons to believe that despite this effort to rewrite history, voters will not cancel Republicans at the polls in 2022. The party out of power typically picks up seats in a new president’s first midterm elections. Redistricting favors Republicans. And a number of House Democrats are opting against re-election bids, a sign of anxiety about their political prospects.But internal strife is never good for a party’s re-election chances. Nor is staking your political brand on the pet issues of a former president whose never-all-that-healthy favorability ratings have slipped further since leaving office. Voters generally don’t respond well to lies that are easily disproved by video footage and their own memories of a national trauma.The question that worries some Republican strategists as they look toward next year’s midterm elections is not whether the country agrees with their fears of cancellation.It’s whether voters still believe in consequences.Drop us a line!We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We’ll try to answer it. Have a comment? We’re all ears. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com or message me on Twitter at @llerer.By the numbers: 1.7 million… That’s the number of people who traveled through airports on Sunday, the most since the start of the pandemic.… SeriouslyYou’re all invited to my mask burning party. Just let me dig out my lipstick first.Thanks for reading. On Politics is your guide to the political news cycle, delivering clarity from the chaos.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Democrats and Republicans agree on US Capitol attack commission

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      House Democrats and Republicans have agreed to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, lawmakers said on Friday.But the terms of the proposed commission fell short of Republican demands, casting doubt on whether the GOP will vote for its creation.The Democratic chairman of the House homeland security committee, Bennie Thompson, from Mississippi, and the ranking Republican on the panel, John Katko, of New York, said the new body would be modelled on the 9/11 Commission.That panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was created in late 2002 and published its report in 2004.Authorities are still examining videos and photos from 6 January.Told by Donald Trump to “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his electoral defeat was the result of mass voter fraud, hundreds of supporters of the then president broke into the Capitol. Some looked for lawmakers, including Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, to capture and possibly kill. Five people died.More than 440 people have been arrested in connection with the attack and charged with crimes including use of a deadly or dangerous weapon and assaulting a police officer. Prosecutors have said they expect to charge about 100 more.Maj Christopher Warnagiris, a US Marine Corps officer, was arrested on Thursday. He is the first active-duty service member to be charged. At least 52 military personnel, law enforcement or government employees have been arrested.A vote on the National Commission to Investigate the 6 January Attack on the United States Capitol Complex Act, legislation necessary to create the 6 January panel, could happen as early as next week.The Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, did not immediately back the deal as announced.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, proposed a commission in February but the process stalled amid disagreement.Democrats wanted the commission to focus on the 6 January attack. Republicans wanted to include violence during protests over police brutality last summer, which they attribute to leftwing groups.There was also disagreement about the makeup of the commission and its powers of subpoena.Thompson was asked to negotiate directly with Katko, who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment over the events of 6 January, on a charge of inciting an insurrection. Trump was not convicted, as only seven Republican senators voted for his guilt, short of the super-majority needed.Should the panel be voted into existence, it will only investigate the events of 6 January.It will include 10 members. Five including the chair will be selected by Pelosi and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer. Five including a vice-chair will be appointed by the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.The commission will have the power to issue subpoenas but that action will require either agreement between the chair and vice-chair or a majority vote.The members will have “significant expertise in the areas of law enforcement, civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, intelligence and cybersecurity”. Current government employees will not be appointed.A final report on the events of 6 January will be required, outlining facts and causes and providing recommendations to prevent future attacks.Thompson said: “There has been a growing consensus that the 6 January attack is of a complexity and national significance that what we need is an independent commission to investigate.“I am pleased that after many months of intensive discussion, Ranking Member Katko and I were able to reach a bipartisan agreement.”Pelosi said: “It is imperative that we seek the truth of what happened on 6 January with an independent, bipartisan 9/11-type commission to examine and report upon the facts, causes and security relating to the terrorist mob attack.” More

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      How Republicans Could Steal the 2024 Election

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      Erica Newland serves as counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit organization founded in 2017 to fight democratic breakdown in America. Before Joe Biden’s victory was officially confirmed in January, she researched some of the ways that Donald Trump’s allies in Congress might sabotage the process. She came to a harrowing conclusion. More

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      Biden Courts Democrats and Republican Leaders on Infrastructure

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      The meeting produced little progress, underscoring the political challenge for President Biden as he seeks to exploit the narrowest of majorities in Congress to revive the country’s economy.WASHINGTON — To hear the participants tell it, President Biden’s first-ever meeting with Republican and Democratic leaders from both houses of Congress was 90 minutes of productive conversation. It was cordial. There were no explosions of anger. More

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      Republicans' Overthrow of Cheney Creates New Problems for Party

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      As the party ties itself ever tighter to Trumpism, some Republicans worry about the implications for 2022 and far beyond. “I don’t think it’s a healthy moment for the party,” said one congressman.WASHINGTON — As she arrived at the Capitol on Wednesday morning to meet her fate, the soon-to-be deposed No. 3 Republican in the House hinted that she was already eyeing her next role.“The party is going to come back stronger, and I’m going to lead the effort to do it,” Representative Liz Cheney said as she stepped into an elevator and down to her demise.Less than an hour later, accompanied by the acclaimed photographer David Hume Kennerly, a family friend, Ms. Cheney returned to her office for an interview with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. A sit-down with Bret Baier of Fox News was to follow.The message was unmistakable: Her colleagues may have stripped Ms. Cheney of her post as chair of the House Republican Conference, but they have effectively handed her a new platform and a new role as the leader of the small band of anti-Trump Republicans.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican minority leader, was trying to address a short-term challenge, and in a narrow sense he was successful. He will no longer have to contend with a member of his leadership team who, much to the consternation of him and his colleagues, continues to condemn former President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to overturn the election.By excommunicating Ms. Cheney from her position, however, Republican lawmakers have created a host of new problems for their party.They have underscored the grip that the increasingly unpopular Mr. Trump retains on their ranks; demoralized Republicans and independents who want to move on from his tenure; and, perhaps most significantly, emboldened a household-name conservative to take her case against Trumpism far beyond a Capitol conference room.House Republicans knew what they had done as soon as they emerged from their meeting.“That’s what it looks like when somebody is running for president,” Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama muttered to colleagues as they quickly walked past Ms. Cheney during her remarks in front of the cameras.Other long-serving members, though, were more sobered by the divisions Mr. Trump is still sowing among Republicans and by the megaphone they had just handed Ms. Cheney.“I don’t think it’s a healthy moment for the party,” said Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, himself a former member of Republican leadership. “I do think it enhanced Liz’s stature and position in a way that furthers her message but to the disadvantage of the broader party.”Later Wednesday, Mr. McCarthy complicated matters, and confounded Republicans, by walking out of his first White House meeting with President Biden and pronouncing, “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election” — a statement starkly at odds with remarks made by numerous G.O.P. House lawmakers.The best Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma could say about the day was that “the election isn’t today” and “if something like this has to happen, you’d rather have it in an off-year.”These are strange times for Republicans.The traditional indicators suggest they have good reason to be optimistic about the midterm elections next year.The party that doesn’t control the White House usually picks up seats in a president’s first midterm elections, redistricting appears to favor Republicans, and a number of House Democrats are voting with their feet by retiring or running for statewide office.And in both chambers, the bar is low: Republicans need only six seats to win the House and a single seat to take back the Senate.The split screen can be agonizing for party stalwarts.“We’ll win the House, but I worry no good lessons are being learned about Jan. 6 and Trump’s ongoing effort to delegitimize the November elections,” said David Kochel, a veteran G.O.P. strategist.Representative Kevin McCarthy, left, the Republican leader, met with President Biden and other congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesLast week, when the question of whether House Republicans should oust Ms. Cheney was crescendoing, Mr. McHenry and a leading redistricting strategist held a private Zoom call for donors and delivered some much-coveted good news.Unveiling an online map with each state’s expected changes in partisan composition, Mr. McHenry and the strategist, Adam Kincaid, predicted that Republicans could reclaim the House majority in 2022 on their gains from the reapportionment process alone.“The difficulty is to get members to see the long-term advantages we have rather than the short-term struggles and nastiness,” Mr. McHenry said.Most of his colleagues concluded that as long as Ms. Cheney was highlighting Mr. Trump’s conspiracy-mongering, and their own timidity, it would prove difficult to fully capitalize on those long-term advantages.Yet it’s Mr. Trump who, well past Mr. Biden’s first-100-day mark, continues to present Republicans with their most vexing problem. At issue: how to accommodate a former president who’s beloved by their core voters, more detested than ever among the broader electorate and consumed with his defeat and campaign of retribution.“Trump is the one who keeps raising it,” said Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump in January.An NBC News poll last month found that Mr. Trump’s favorability rating was down to 32 percent among all voters and 14 percent among independents. Democrats can barely contain their delight over the disarray across the aisle.“Right now should be easiest time for the party out of power to unify in opposition,” Representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania said.As Ms. Cheney discovered, Republican leaders will continue to bow to Mr. Trump as long as they’re worried that their rank-and-file voters will punish them for disloyalty.This could prove ominous for Republicans in the most competitive districts and states: They may not be able to survive a primary without him, but they may prove unelectable if they’re linked too closely to him.“There’s not a lot of good options,” said Brendan Buck, a former House Republican leadership aide.Democrats offered a preview of what’s to come, particularly in more blue-leaning terrain, this week in Virginia. Republicans nominated Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity executive who has promoted “election integrity” measures and refused to say Mr. Biden had won the 2020 election fairly, as their standard-bearer for governor. In his statement responding to Mr. Youngkin’s nomination, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the likely Democratic nominee, mentioned Mr. Trump’s name three times in the first three sentences.Given Democrats’ slim control of the House and the newly drawn seats they will have to defend, the long shadow of Trumpism still may not be enough for the party to hold the House in 2022, as even the most hardened Democratic partisans acknowledge. “They have a strong likelihood of taking the House,” Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, said of Republicans.Yet Mr. Begala argued that the vise Mr. Trump has Republicans in — by which most of them must align with him to win a primary — could brighten Democrats’ chances in the Senate. “Republicans did not cling to Hooverism,” he said. “This is a huge mistake.”In two of the races for the most competitive Democratic-held Senate seats, Arizona and Georgia, as well as a contest for the seat Republicans may have the most difficulty holding, Pennsylvania, Republicans are worried about Mr. Trump’s potential to rally support behind a candidate who can’t win the general election.The fear for some in the party is that 2022 echoes 2010, when Republicans took back the House but fell short in the Senate because they had elevated candidates who could not prevail in November.For many Republicans, though, what’s more alarming about the Cheney-Trump feud are the implications for the party’s long-term health.Whether Ms. Cheney seeks to fight back electorally — perhaps in a symbolic long-shot White House bid in 2024 — she’s plainly comfortable with political martyrdom.In fact, after largely voting with Mr. Trump over the last four years and trying to stay out of his line of fire, she seems to welcome his hatred and the opportunity it offers to change, or at least shame, the party.“If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person; you have plenty of others to choose from,” she told her colleagues during the caucus meeting, according to a Republican in the room. “But I promise you this: After today, I will be leading the fight to restore our party and our nation to conservative principles, to defeating socialism, to defending our republic, to making the G.O.P. worthy again of being the party of Lincoln.”Mr. Trump’s most prominent defenders were not exactly worried.“She can run against the president, anyone can try to run against the president, but there’s no way he’s losing,” Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio said after the meeting. “He’s going to win the Republican primary and he’s going to be president if he decides to run.”That’s exactly what worries some longtime Republicans, including a few in the House leadership — that Ms. Cheney’s new mission will only prod Mr. Trump to run again in 2024 to prove his hold on the party.For now, however, most rank-and-file congressional Republicans are planning to do what they’ve done since Mr. Trump emerged as a candidate nearly six years ago — very little.“His policy legacy is popular, but his personality obviously continues to be controversial,” said Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky, urging his party to focus on policy over persona before betraying a touch of self-awareness: “I’m not saying it’s easy.” More