dailyloe.com – Representative Elise Stefanik has released a new book titled ‘Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities’. The book aims to cement a moment of political stardom from late 2023. That moment came during a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. Stefanik asked the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn a yes-or-no question.
The university presidents answered disastrously, according to the narrative. Stefanik describes playing a Congressional version of Michael Jordan’s flu game that day. She was sick but went to work armed with Kleenex and cough drops. She was also doused with over-the-counter cold medicine.
Stefanik recounts dithering over a colleague’s offer to yield their minutes. She states, ‘The question heard around the world almost didn’t happen.’ The hearing was so zeitgeisty it appeared on Saturday Night Live. The resulting sketch mocked Stefanik and presidents Claudine Gay, Sally Kornbluth, and Liz Magill.
Stefanik describes the SNL sketch as ‘the worst cold open ever.’ It still rates a mention in her book. The political career she hoped to fuel with this book has since stalled. The once moderate Republican and Harvard graduate had gone full MAGA by the Joe Biden years.
She made statements supporting Donald Trump’s 2020 ‘stolen’ election claims. The 2023 hearings threw her into the spotlight. After Trump returned to office in 2024, he seemed to reward her loyalty. He nominated her to be ambassador to the United Nations in early 2025.
The rest of last year was all downhill, however. Trump rescinded Stefanik’s ambassadorship nomination. He did not want to lose her congressional seat in a special election. The president then declined to endorse her campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in New York.
In December of last year, Stefanik announced she was suspending that gubernatorial campaign. She also stated she was leaving Congress at the end of her term. This came a mere two years after the hearings that put her on SNL. Her book serves as a time capsule of that brief period of fame.[]
Source: Slate
