WASHINGTON — Poor Elise Stefanik.
She was so ready to graduate from Congress into the big leagues, leaving behind her messy insurrectionist friends in the House Republican Conference to become the next esteemed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
She worked so hard to win over President Donald Trump for this job. She spent years on it, and literally sold her soul, in fact. The Elise Stefanik that came to Congress in 2014 was nothing like the Elise Stefanik of today. Back then, she was a moderate Republican. An alum of George W. Bush’s administration, her first leadership role in the House came in 2017, when she co-chaired the Tuesday Group, a group of moderate Republicans who served as a counterbalance to the far-right Freedom Caucus.
When former Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) ran for president in 2012, she helped with debate preparation for his running mate, former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Both Romney and Ryan have since become some of Trump’s harshest GOP critics.
But not Stefanik. Somewhere along the way, she made a shrewd calculation: the best way to advance her career was to completely reinvent herself and appeal to the most extreme factions of her party. That is, appeal to Trump.
She endorsed him after he won the Republican presidential primary in 2016. When an old “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced weeks before the November election, showing Trump making offensive remarks about women, Stefanik called it “wrong,” but stood by her endorsement. Trump eventually won, and so did she.
By 2019, her MAGA-fication was in full force. She strongly opposed Trump’s impeachment. On Jan. 6, 2021, Stefanik voted to overturn the results of the November election that Trump lost to Joe Biden. She fueled Trump’s lie that the election had been stolen from him by widespread voter fraud, which did not exist — the same lie that, hours before she cast her vote, Trump used to incite a violent insurrection at the Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
When the House formed a committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, Stefanik, eager to be seen defending Trump, nonsensically blamed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for the insurrection. Most House Republicans rallied behind Trump amid the committee’s hearings, but Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) stuck to the facts and continued to condemn his actions. So they ousted her from her role as the House Republican Conference Chair. Guess who was there to take over her top spot?
Stefanik still needed to raise her national profile, with her eye on becoming Trump’s vice presidential pick the next time around. In November 2022, she made the point of becoming the first Republican — and the highest-level one — to endorse him for president in 2024. The fact that literally everyone else in her party was furious at Trump for costing them House seats in the midterms only made it better. She stood out as Trump’s most loyal loyalist defender ever. Check.
In December 2023, Stefanik used a House hearing to make a big show of attacking university presidents for allowing free speech on their campuses. The video went viral and she got the national attention she wanted. Check.
It was all going according to plan. By January 2024, she was giving campaign speeches for Trump that sounded like Trump had written them himself. Her name was being floated as his potential pick for vice president. Trump was strongly supporting her reelection to her congressional seat in New York: “SMART, STRONG, and TOUGH — she has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” he screamed on social media. Check.
She won reelection in November. So did Trump. Less than a week later, he nominated Stefanik to represent the U.S. at the United Nations. Not the same as vice president, but still pretty fancy. Check.
Hot damn, Stefanik was close — so close! — to leaving behind her days of being just another member of Congress clamoring for Trump’s attention. Her U.N. nomination had already advanced from a Senate committee in January. The only thing standing between her and her triumphant ascension to an international body was a single Senate vote to confirm her.
Like a high school senior days away from graduating magna cum laude, Stefanik had even been reminiscing lately about the good times that she and her House colleagues have had, posting throwback photos on social media about special moments together.
“2017 Throwbacks!” reads a Wednesday post that includes a photo of her being sworn into Congress and group shots with colleagues. “This was my 3rd year in Congress, an interesting one for sure. After my first re-elect under my belt and the incredible election of President Trump in 2016, we were hard at work delivering for the American people.”
“2018 Throwbacks!” reads another post, from Thursday morning. “A tough, tough midterm election cycle. Was honored to host President @realdonaldtrump to sign the National Defense Authorization Act at Fort Drum right in my district!”
But hours after that post, Stefanik’s dreams of ditching the House and entering the upper echelons of MAGA greatness collapsed like a pyramid of empty beer cans in a frat house. Trump withdrew her nomination to the U.N. and sent her back to the House, saying they needed her there given the party’s tight vote margins. His stunning reversal came amid GOP worries that they could lose two special elections in deep red Florida — and possibly Stefanik’s seat — to Democrats.
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Who knows, maybe she’ll get another Trump administration appointment down the road. Maybe she’ll stay in the House for a while, figuring out a new committee to join or new causes to take up with her old friends amid the high school chaos.
But Elise Stefanik went MAGA for nothing.