By ALAN FRAM, BRIAN SLODYSKO and KEVIN FREKING

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans will be forced to go on the record, defending or rebuking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has drawn bipartisan condemnation over her embrace of far-right conspiracy theories, as well as her past endorsement of violence against Democrats.

The politically agonizing vote expected Thursday, which will determine whether the Georgia Republican is stripped of her committee assignments, underscores tension over the best political path forward that has riven the party since Donald Trump lost the White House.

Democrats issued an ultimatum earlier in the week, telling House Republicans to strip Greene of her committee assignments — or they would. Bipartisan pressure built after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called Greene’s “loony lies” a “cancer” for the party.

But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday ruled out taking action. Instead, he accused Democrats of a “partisan power grab” for targeting Greene, who once suggested that a Jewish-owned financial firm may have been involved in a plot to spark California wildfires using a space laser.

“If this is not the bottom, I don’t know what the hell is,” House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said before a resolution was sent to the House floor to strip Greene of her posts.

McCarthy’s decision to back Greene comes at a time when the party has been ideologically adrift after Trump’s loss, struggling over whether to embrace his norm-busting divisiveness or the GOP’s more traditional, policy-oriented conservative values.

On Wednesday, House Republicans blocked an effort by conservative hardliners to oust the No. 3 House Republican, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from her leadership role. Cheney, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, had enraged Trump supporters by voting to impeach him over the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In sticking by both women, McCarthy was attempting to placate both traditional conservatives and populists, like Greene, who emulate Trump. The moves were typical of McCarthy’s preference to avoid ruffling feathers as he charts his path to someday becoming House speaker.

“You know what that’s going to mean?” he told reporters Wednesday evening. “Two years from now, we’re going to win the majority. That’s because this conference is more united. We’ve got the right leadership team behind it.”

But the GOP’s wings remain concerned that the other is leading them down the wrong path, and to some, Wednesday’s outcome seemed more an uneasy truce than a full-on peace treaty.

“This is about the direction of our party and whether or not we’re going to be a majority who’s dedicated to just one person or we’re going to be a united Republican majority,” said Rep. Jaime Herrera-Beutler, R-Wash., who with Cheney was among just 10 House Republicans to back impeaching Trump.

Greene has shown support for calls to violence against Democrats, bizarre fictions about faked school shootings and unfounded QAnon theories about Democrats joining in child abuse rings.

The conspiracy theories she’s embraced came up during a closed-door Republican caucus meeting on Wednesday, which attendants described as spirited with long lines of speakers at the microphones. Some said Greene apologized to her colleagues, though there were conflicting, vague versions of exactly what she’d said.

“She was contrite. And I think she brought a lot of people over to her side,” said conservative Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

That’s at odds with statements she’s made in recent weeks on Twitter, where she has vowed to never back down or apologize and labeled her critics traitors, while using the Democratic push to punish her to raise money for her campaign.

Democrats say it’s politically advantageous to tie some Republicans to the far-right Greene. This week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched a $500,000 ad campaign that attempts to link eight Republicans to her and other adherents of QAnon, which focuses on the false belief that top Democrats are involved in child sex trafficking and cannibalism.

McCarthy condemned Greene’s past endorsements of conspiracy theories — after weeks of saying little critical of her — and said the first-term congresswoman had recognized in a private conversation that she must meet “a higher standard” as a lawmaker.

“I hold her to her word, as well as her actions going forward,” McCarthy said.

She burst onto the national political scene with enthusiastic support from Trump.

Republicans appointed Greene to the Education and Labor Committee, a decision that drew especially harsh criticism because of her suggestions that mass school shootings in Connecticut and Florida could be hoaxes. Greene is also on the Budget Committee.

McCarthy said Democrats turned down his offer to move Greene onto the House Small Business Committee instead.

It’s unusual for party leaders to strip lawmakers of committee assignments, which can help them address their districts’ needs and raise campaign contributions.

In 2019, House GOP leaders removed Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who had a history of racist comments, from the Agriculture and Judiciary panels after he wondered aloud in a New York Times story about when the term “white supremacist” became offensive. He lost the Republican primary for his seat in 2020 and is out of Congress after serving nine terms.

In online videos and through supportive “likes” on social media, Greene has voiced support for racist beliefs, calls for violence against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama and various false theories.

By AAMER MADHANI

WASHINGTON (AP) — Less than two weeks in office, President Joe Biden is facing two critical tests of whether the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol has damaged America’s standing as a beacon for democracy.

Protests in Russia and a military coup in Myanmar come as American credibility on the world stage has plummeted after last month’s storming of the Capitol by a pro-Donald Trump mob looking to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory.

That adds to the weight on Biden as he seeks to fulfill a campaign pledge to dramatically reposition the U.S. as a global leader following four years of a Trump foreign policy driven by an “America First” mantra. That policy was marked by the frequent disparagement of democratic allies and the occasional embrace of authoritarian leaders.

Biden’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, acknowledged the difficulty.

“I think there’s no doubt that the attack on our own democracy on Jan. 6 creates an even greater challenge for us to be carrying the banner of democracy and freedom and human rights around the world because, for sure, people in other countries are saying to us, ‘Well, why don’t you look at yourselves first?’” the secretary of state said in an interview with NBC News.

Blinken added, “The difference, though, between us and so many other countries is that when we are challenged, including when we challenge ourselves — we’re doing it in full daylight with full transparency.”

Biden, in the early days of his presidency, has sought to send the message in a series of calls with foreign leaders that America is back.

He’s reassured Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga that the U.S. has its support in an ongoing territorial dispute with China over islets in the East China Sea. He’s sought to reset the relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was belittled by Trump as “dishonest & weak.” And he’s told Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that the U.S. would send $4 billion to help development in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala — nations whose hardships have spawned tides of migration through Mexico toward the United States.

“The United States remains a country in the world that is looked to for leadership,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “It’s going to take some time, but he’s certainly committed to doing that.”

But the crises in Myanmar and Russia present Biden with difficult tests of his promise to reestablish global leadership that are likely to be far more complicated than mending fences with traditional allies.

Biden on Monday threatened to slap new sanctions on Myanmar after a coup that saw the military arrest the civilian leaders of its government, calling the episode “a direct assault on the country’s transition to democracy and the rule of law.”

In his first call with Russian President Vladimir Putin as counterparts last week, Biden raised concerns about the detention of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and the crackdown on supporters backing his arrest. The mass arrests have only accelerated in the days since the two leaders spoke as protests have continued across the country.

“For Putin, he looks at the Capitol riot and sees it as more evidence of his worldview, a continuation of the degradation of liberalism in the world,” said Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia in the Obama administration. “The Biden election doesn’t mean much to him about his theory about liberal democracy. Whereas Putin’s opponents are very encouraged by the election of President Biden because it shows that American democratic institutions were resilient.”

To that end, Navalny’s supporters wrote to Biden over the weekend urging him to take meaningful action with sanctions against members of Putin’s inner circle to demonstrate that he’s serious about reclaiming the U.S. role as a champion of democracy.

“Their argument is, If you just sanction a bunch of no-name, low-level colonels … that’s exactly who Putin is expecting,” McFaul said. “They want the Biden administration to sanction the economic actors in the Putin regime, and they’ve made it easy for the Biden administration in they’ve named them all in their seven-page letter.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, drew a line from Trump to the coup in Myanmar. Trump had made baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud that were rejected by multiple courts as well as Trump’s own Justice Department.

An announcement read on Myanmar’s military-owned Myawaddy TV explained that the seizure was necessary because the government had not acted on the military’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the Southeast Asian nation’s recent elections and because it allowed the election to go ahead despite the coronavirus pandemic.

“When America speaks and acts, the world watches, and when our leaders propagate conspiracy theories and subvert democracy here at home, it sets a dangerous example for the rest of the world,” Schiff said.

Adversaries such as China, Iran and Venezuela pointed to the Capitol riot as evidence of the fragility of U.S. democracy. Even some allies said the scene was unsettling and has caused them to reconsider the United States’ position as the self-proclaimed beacon of democracy.

“After something like this, I believe it would be very difficult for the world to see the United States as a symbol of democracy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy said in an interview with “Axios on HBO.”

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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.