A once powerful Capitol Hill political group that ushered in the libertarian Tea Party movement has suddenly collapsed under the weight of former President Donald Trump's populist political campaign, according to a new report.
FreedomWorks president Adam Brandon told Politico Wednesday that Trump drove an irreparable wedge among Republicans that saw fundraising plummet and in-house fighting mount.
“Our staff became divided into MAGA and Never Trump factions,” Brandon reportedly said. “We’re dissolved...It’s effective immediately.”
Trump created a "huge gap" between FreedomWorks leadership that believed in libertarian principles — namely smaller government and the "rule of law" — and a new wave of MAGA members who hold suspect Washington's perceived political elite, Brandon told Politico.
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Particular points of contention were free trade and immigration, Brandon told Politico. While the libertarian faction supported free trade and merit-based immigration policies, MAGA members demanded import tariffs and Trump's "wall" along the southern border.
Another hot button issue: the Trump administration's adding $8 trillion to the national debt.
“A lot of our base aged," Brandon said. "The new activists that have come in [with] Trump, they tend to be much more populist."
Trump also created a fundraising fiasco that saw donors complaining that FreedomWorks both did too much and too little to support the former president.
"We’ve seen an erosion of conservative donors," board member Paul Beckner told Politico. "I think donors are saying, ‘What are you doing for Trump today?’
Brandon said he received the alternate complaint — that FreedomWorks had thrown too much support behind the former president.
“[I] did my best to balance the two competing ideologies," Brandon reportedly told Politico. “It is an impossible position."