Officials for the Kansas Republican Party are crying foul after a fundraiser for the Johnson County GOP featured an effigy of President Joe Biden that attendees could pay to physically assault.
Video from Friday’s “Grand Ol’ Party” event in Overland Park, Kansas, shows people punching, kicking and swinging a bat at a Biden mannequin wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” shirt.
“This booth was hosted by a Karate school to promote their self defense class,” Maria Holiday, who chairs the Johnson County Republican Party, told The Kansas City Star.
Video of people kicking the Biden dummy was uploaded to the video platform Rumble, but later deleted. Below, however, you can see video of the event that Democratic commentator and attorney Kaivan Shroff uploaded to X, formerly Twitter.
Kansas GOP officials condemned the effigy attacks.
In a Facebook post, former Kansas GOP chairman Mike Kuckelman wrote: “This conduct is shameful, and it is wrong.” He called for the resignations of Holiday, Kansas Republican Party chairman Mike Brown and Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden.
Kuckelman reminded his fellow Republicans that they were outraged “when Kathy Griffin engaged in similar shameful conduct against President Trump” and “rightfully demanded she be cancelled.” He insisted that party members “must speak equally as loudly in our opposition now.”
Kuckelman said that while he didn’t agree with Biden’s policies, “he is a fellow human being” and “no one should condone or defend this horrific and shameful conduct.”
Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins (R) said he couldn’t speak to the specifics of Friday’s event, but told the Star that “what may seem like a joke for many will be seen by some as an expansion of acceptable behavior with potentially tragic consequences.”
Republican congressional candidate Dr. Prasanth Reddy, a research oncologist in Johnson County, criticized the effigy attacks on X, saying that “ridiculous, thoughtless actions like this one distract from those trying to deliver solutions.”
In a statement to HuffPost, Holiday admitted the “events last weekend [were] tarnished by a brief incident where a mask depicting President Biden was added to an outside exhibitor interactive self defense display.”
Holiday said “the mask was regrettable and removed” and said “no one collected or solicited any funds or donations in exchange for hitting the training device.”
But plenty of people on social media had strong opinions on the matter ― and, yes, many of them mentioned Griffin’s 2017 photo with a fake bloody Donald Trump head.