A New York Times reporter who profiled Rep. Elise Stefanik's political rise compared her to the titular character in "The Great Gatsby."
The formerly moderate GOP lawmaker reinvented herself as a Donald Trump acolyte, which reporter Nick Confessore told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" resembled the transformation of Jay Gatz into Jay Gatsby described by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his classic novel.
"I think Stefanik is part of the Gatsbyesque tradition in American politics," Confessore said. "Donald Trump is part of it, too, and so is George Santos. What happened to Elise Stefanik is a case study of the Trump era. The bigger story, in some ways, is that the party capitulated to him. He was a source of power. Stefanik was an up and comer from a swing district, well liked by the old party establishment and she found in the middle of the Trump era that she couldn't get traction on the big issues."
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"She couldn't elect more females to the House of Representatives, she couldn't get traction on climate change and immigration reform, so she flipped. She realized that the source of power at that time in the party was to turn Trump and took the intelligence you saw that day in the interview and applied it to becoming a Trump and a MAGA person. She adopted his language on Twitter, talks and tweets like him, adopted the conspiracy theories that animate the base, the 'big lie,' so she's put all that talent to work to read the winds and dived into Trumpism, and is it going to serve her?"
"He's the source of her juice and fundraising prowess," Confessore added. "She's smart and quite young, so she still has time for a second and third act. Again, she has made the bet that Trump is going to be the winner of the nomination and the future of the party and we'll see if she has the right bet."
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