Chris Crucial: The GOP's slow-motion implosion 🧨🧨🧨

Plus: A Republican talking point blows up.

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1. Crisis mode: Even as Donald Trump continues to march toward the Republican presidential nomination, the party underneath him is in the midst of a major crisis.

Consider:

• Republicans lost a special House election this week, further thinning their already paper-thin majority

• GOP members are OPENLY speculating about whether Speaker Mike Johnson is the right guy for the job (and he’s only been on the job for a little over 100 days!)

• As Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman noted, House Republicans have now lost 6(!) rules votes on the House floor.

• Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, widely seen as one of the rising stars within the national GOP, announced his retirement

• Four full House committee chairs — including, most recently, Tennessee Rep. Mark Green — have decided against running for reelection in November.

• Republicans in the House and Senate can’t get on the same page (or close to it) on funding for Ukraine and/or Israel.

• Mitch McConnell’s influence over the GOP Senators has been drained by recent fights — and led to questions about his political future.

• Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles is asking the House for a formal inquiry into fellow Republican Rep. Mike Turner’s warning of a “serious national security threat” on Wednesday.

What’s become abundantly clear is that Republicans are in chaos — and that many people who would, on earth 2.0, be power brokers and future stars are running (not walking) for the exits.

Why? Simple. Because the party is less a political party than a cult of personality organized around the whims of Donald Trump. And that is no way to build a political career (or a political party).

Consider Gallagher. He is 39 years old. A Marine. Senate Republicans tried to convince him to run against Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) this year. Search “Mike Gallagher” and “rising star” and you will get a whole lot of results.

So, what happened? Gallagher was one of a small handful of Republicans who opposed the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last week. (Gallagher’s opposition was entirely based on principle; that impeaching Mayorkas without an obvious high crime or misdemeanor would set a dangerous precedent going forward.) Which immediately drew him a primary challenge in the form of a more Trump-aligned candidate.

This is the way of the modern Republican party. The ONLY position that matters is fealty to Trump. That is what makes you either a “good” Republican or a RINO. (Nikki Haley is a prime example; she is being cast as insufficiently conservative by Trumpworld despite her long record of comservatism.)

Which means that actual thoughtful conservatives have no real home in the party at the moment. Hence, Gallagher.

2. Republicans find their a man in Wisconsin: As I noted above, Mike Gallagher was Republicans’ top choice to take on Baldwin in Wisconsin. When he said “no,” the party looked to be in rough shape — which would have been a major missed opportunity given the closeness of recent statewide elections in the state coupled with the likelihood that it will, again, be a swing state at the presidential level.

Republicans can breathe a sigh of relief as reports Thursday made clear that wealthy businessman Eric Hovde plans to run. And, according to that same reporting, Hovde may well have a clear path to the Republican nomination. (Controversial former sheriff David Clarke has made some news about running in the past but it isn’t clear how serious he actually is about a bid.)

Hovde ran for Senate once before — in 2012 when he lost the primary to former Gov. Tommy Thompson. Hovde spent millions of his own money to finish second.

Baldwin has, largely, been immune to the competitiveness of her state. She beat Thompson by 6 points in an open seat race. In 2018, Baldwin won by 11 points. She is an able candidate who will run a very well-funded campaign; she had more than $8 million in the bank at the end of 2023.

What Republicans have to hope is that Hovde, who is again expected to spend millions of his own money, will stay close enough to Baldwin that the presidential ticket — assuming Trump can win Wisconsin as he did in 2016 — can carry Hovde across the finish line.

The Wisconsin Senate race is rated as leaning Democratic, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. It is one of 8 Democratic-held Senate seats that Cook sees as potentially competitive. There are zero Republican seats in similar danger.

3. Whoops!: A confidential FBI source was charged Thursday by special counsel David Weiss with obstruction and felony false statements for providing untrue negative information about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

At issue is testimony by Alexander Smirnov — and what he told an FBI agent about the Bidens’ relationship with Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.

As ABC reported:

[In 2020] Smirnov allegedly made false statements in recounting two meetings in 2015 or 2016 in which executives associated with Burisma told him they had hired Hunter Biden to "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems." He further said the executives paid $5 million each to Hunter Biden and President Biden while Biden was in office as vice president, so that Hunter "will take care of all those issues through his dad," referring to the then-criminal investigation being conducted by the then-Ukrainian prosecutor general into Burisma.

Turns out, according to Weiss, none of that was true. Which badly undermines efforts by congressional Republicans to suggest that the Bidens received ill-gotten gains from Ukraine. As HuffPost political reporter Igor Bobic noted: “[Iowa Sen. Chuck] Grassley & [Ketucky Rep.James] Comer hyped allegations made by this informant, other Rs ran with it and said they flat out proved Biden was guilty of bribery.”

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“Hypothetically, if I was picking my running mate, really who I would ask right now is Mitt Romney.” — West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, doing nothing to quiet the rumors that he might run as a third party candidate in 2024.

ONE GOOD CHART

The middle class? Yeah, most people don’t qualify for it. This Washington Post deep dive — from which the chart is taken — is worth your time.

SONG OF THE DAY

On this day in 1941, Duke Ellington recorded “Take the A Train.” Legendary.