Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz Launch ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ‘America First’ Caucus

A group of the House’s most extreme right-wing Republicans is launching a new caucus to push President Trump’s values—and an explicit pledge to push “Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”

Scandal-plagued Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz announced he was joining Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s new “America First Caucus” group on Friday, just hours after a draft memo leaked that outlined the organization’s barely veiled racism.

The seven-page memo states the group has been formed “to follow in President Trump’s footsteps, and potentially step on some toes and sacrifice sacred cows for the good of the American nation.”

“America is a nation with a border, and a culture, strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions,” the memo reads. “History has shown that societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en-masse into a country, particularly without institutional support for assimilation and an expansive welfare state to bail them out should they fail to contribute positively to the country.”

The memo goes on to decry “post-1965 immigrants” for hurting wages and diluting the economy. That’s a direct reference to the year when the U.S. abolished a policy of giving Western Europeans great preferential treatment in immigration while mostly barring immigrants from Africa, Asia and even Southern and Eastern Europe.

If that’s not overt enough, the memo also states the caucus “will work towards an infrastructure that reflects the architectural, engineering and aesthetic value that befits the progeny of European architecture.”

The memo was first obtained by Punchbowl News, which reported that Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar is also involved in the group’s founding and that Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and Alabama Rep. Barry Moore were also planning to join.

Gaetz calls an article about the memo a “hit piece” in his tweet announcing he was joining the new group—but notably didn’t deny its accuracy:

All of those members are also members of the hard right House Freedom Caucus. But multiple other conservative Republicans’ offices said that they hadn’t seen it before it leaked publicly.

The members reportedly involved in the group happen to be among the most controversial in the House.

Greene was removed from her House committees earlier this year for previous remarks she’d made promoting violence, embracing the QAnon conspiracy theory and espousing racially charged and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Gaetz, one of Trump’s loudest House acolytes, pushed the conspiracy theory that it was really Antifa, not Trump’s own backers, who’d attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, among a long string of YOLO MAGA stances. He’s currently facing a federal investigation involving possible payment for sex and having sex with a 17-year old (a charge he’s denied) as well as other alleged misdeeds.

Gosar has a long history of racially inflammatory comments, has played footsie with QAnon, was one of the loudest and most active supporters of President Trump’s attempts to reject the 2020 election results, and a few weeks ago spoke at a conference organized by avowed white nationalists.

Multiple Republicans privately said they were aghast when they saw the memo.

One senior House GOP staffer told VICE News that they had been discussing the memo with other staffers, and “were all pretty shocked” by its language, while another staffer called it “sick.”

The memo contains plenty of other controversial views, chief among them the furtherance of the lie that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud:

“Recent election results demonstrate a compromised integrity of our elections and made our election system a subject of global mockery. Across the country federal elections have been undermined by using voting machines that are readily compromised and illegally accessed whereby results appear manipulated, voters are disenfranchised, and faith in our system eroded,” the memo baselessly claims.

VICE News separately obtained the memo. Read it here: