Last Updated on February 20, 2021
The New York Young Republican Club has called out New York City-area Rep. Nicole Malliotakis for backing Liz Cheney’s bid for re-election as Chair of the House Republican Conference.
The Vice President of the club, Viswanag Burra, stated that Malliotakis had “turned her back on the American people with a vote for Liz Cheney” during the House Republican caucus’s secret leadership elections earlier this month.
Despite widespread outcry against Cheney from the Republican base following her vote to impeach President Donald Trump, Cheney won re-election by a large margin, with a final result of 145 votes for her to continue in her position and only 61 against. Many consider it an example of how out of step Republican members of Congress were with their own base.
She reportedly secured the support of many members of Congress who publicly claim to be strong Trump supporters, including Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) and the aforementioned Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY).
Burra urged Malliotakis to match a $5,000 contribution made to the club by Rep. Matt Gaetz, in order to prove her support for President Trump’s America First vision.
https://twitter.com/vishburra/status/1362447790924783617?s=21
Gaetz was a vocal critic of Cheney during the re-election fight, traveling to her home state of Wyoming to rally against her in late January.
Burra continued to rail against Malliotakis during an interview with Red Voice Media.
The New York Young Republican Club has come under fire recently for defying illegal lockdowns to host a social gala with Gaetz as their headline speaker. Their event drew condemnation from Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), and a swift crackdown from Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ), who forcibly closed the New Jersey venue where the event had been held.
The current leadership of the club has taken it in a more Trumpian populist direction, promoting a right-wing version of Occupy Wall Street to protest collusion by the financial establishment against those short-selling GameStop stocks.
Rep. Malliotakis has styled herself as a staunch Trump ally, and represents a Staten Island congressional district which Trump won by 11 percentage points last year. Although the New York Young Republican Club is her local chapter of the Young Republicans, she has thus far refused to support or associate with the club.
