Two top Republican leaders in Kansas are under fire after a video surfaced of people beating an effigy of President Joe Biden.
The incident happened during a fundraiser for Johnson County Friday when a mannequin with a Biden mask was kicked and beaten, according to the AP.
A video was posted to X, formerly Twitter.
The event further divided the GOP in Kansas with calls for the resignations of Mike Brown, the Kansas GOP’s state chair, and Maria Holiday, the leader of the party in Johnson County, per the AP, which added, the state GOP blamed an outside vendor who was there to promote a martial arts school. The blame was conveyed in a Facebook post.
Both Brown and Holiday have not commented; the vendor has not been named.
Brown’s predecessor, Mike Kuckelman, a Kansas City attorney, has spearheaded the calls for Brown’s and Holiday’s resignations, the AP reported.
“The state GOP accused Kuckelman of creating “a false narrative” and dividing the party,” per the AP. “The conflict between Brown and Kuckelman reflects the split in the national GOP between former President Trump’s most ardent, election conspiracy-promoting supporters and its more establishment wing, including former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel.”
Kuckelman supported McDaniel’s reelection in 2022, while Brown did not want her to stay. She’s now gone and Trump-picked people lead the RNC.
“This disgusting visualization of violence went viral. This doesn’t just go away,” Kuckelman said during an interview Tuesday. “This does not help win independent and soft Republican voters.”
Gov. Laura Kelly said video shows Americans need to “reverse course” and make such political disagreements less contentious, the AP reported.
“It’s indicative of how low we’ve gone in political discourse,” she said in a brief interview at the Statehouse.
“What may seem like a joke for many will be seen by some as an expansion of acceptable behavior with potentially tragic consequences,” Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins said in a statement Tuesday.
In a Facebook post Monday evening, the Johnson County GOP said “The Biden mask on the mannequin as only ‘a brief incident.’”
“The mask was regrettable and removed,” the statement said. “No one collected or solicited any funds or donations in exchange for hitting the training device.”
The Kansas GOP said no one from its staff attended the event. It also called Kuckelman “a disgruntled former member of the state party.”
“It’s unfortunate the events took place, and even more so the former state party member created a false narrative in order to spew rhetoric and capitalize on continued attempts to divide the party,” the statement said.
Kuckelman said blaming the vendor is “disingenuous.”
“If this had happened when I was chair, if a vendor pulled a stunt like this, I would have immediately shut it down and had them escorted off the premises,” Kunkelman said. “This is so far over the line, you can’t just say, ‘Stop.’”
