Yahoo Finance Rep. Dan Crenshaw Says Conservatives Have 'Grifters in Our Midst' and 'Performance Artists' Telling Lies
Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Rep. Dan Crenshaw
Rep. Dan Crenshaw is calling out some of his Republican colleagues who he says are "grifters" and "performance artists" who tell "lie after lie after lie."
While appearing at a recent campaign event in Houston, the Texas lawmaker and former Navy SEAL explained that there are "two types of members in Congress — there is performance artists and there is legislators."
"Performance artists are the ones who get all of the attention, the ones you think are more conservative because they know how to say slogans real well," he said in video of the event that was posted on Twitter. "They know how to recite the lines that they know our voters want to hear."
Crenshaw warned that some of the most outspoken conservatives didn't support former President Donald Trump's conservative agenda when it came time to vote. He then said he was referring to "everybody in the Freedom Caucus, all of them."
The group of a few dozen lawmakers includes some controversial names like Reps. Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Louie Gohmert of Texas, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and others. Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry was recently picked to take over the leadership from current caucus chairman, Arizona's Rep. Andy Biggs.
youtube Rep. Dan Crenshaw delivers a virtual commencement speech to the graduating class of 2020
"We have grifters in our midst," Crenshaw said at the event hosted by the Texas Liberty Alliance PAC. "I mean in the conservative movement. [They tell] lie after lie after lie because they know something psychologically about the conservative heart. We're worried about what people are going to do to us, what they're going to infringe on us."
Crenshaw, who was elected in 2018, said voters might "cringe" to hear that a Trump critic, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, consistently voted for the former president's agenda. Kinzinger, who is set to retire from Congress, voted to impeach Trump after the events of Jan. 6 and sits on the committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
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Crenshaw claimed that Kinzinger voted in line with Trump "almost 99 percent" of the time while members of the Freedom Caucus were at the "bottom" of a list of those who supported the former president's conservative policies.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Kinzinger's Trump score — defined as how often a member voted in line with the former president's position — was 99 percent in 2017 and 2018 but dropped in his next term. Crenshaw scored almost 91 percent during the last two years of Trump's presidency while incoming Freedom Caucus leader Perry scored over 94 percent during the same period.
