EXCERPT:
CONFESSORE: “What happened to Elise Stefanik is a case study and what happened to her party more broadly, in the Trump era. He did in part conquer the party. But the bigger story in some ways is that the party capitulated to him. People saw that he was a source of power, and they gravitated towards it. Elise Stefanik was an up and comer. She was from a swing district. She was well liked by the old party establishment. And she found in the middle of the Trump era, that she couldn't get traction on her big issue. She couldn't elect more females to the House of Representatives, she couldn't get traction on some of the issues like climate change and immigration reform. And so she flipped. She realized that the source of power at that time in the party was to turn Trump. And she took all the intelligence that you saw that day in your interview, and she applied it to becoming a Trump and a MAGA person.”