The woman running for governor of Idaho is under fire over a speech at a white-nationalist conference.
Last May, as the state struggled to combat a surge of COVID-19 cases, McGeachin tried to impose a statewide mask ban while Gov. Brad Little was away on a business trip. Five months later, while the GOP governor was in Texas to critique President Joe Biden’s handling of the Mexican border, McGeachin went rogue again, issuing an executive order to ban vaccine mandates that was almost immediately struck down.
Now, the 2022 gubernatorial candidate is under fire over a Friday speech she gave via video to a white-nationalist conference in Orlando. But even as she faced growing—albeit far from deafening—backlash from home-state Republicans, McGeachin doubled and then tripled down on palling around with racists in a clear sign she thinks extremism can win statewide in Idaho.
“She takes her marching orders from the far right,” one Republican state senator in Idaho, who requested anonymity because he has to work with McGeachin, told The Daily Beast. “She is not in step with the Senate or the House—or the governor, for that matter. But nothing she does surprises us anymore; it just puts us in an awkward position.”
The Trump-endorsed candidate’s video was aired at the conference organized by Nick Fuentes, who is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “white-nationalist live-streamer” and “outspoken admirer of fascists such as Mussolini.” During the conference, Fuentes also publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.