Where do we draw the line on ethics in public office?

It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week for the Republican Party, assuming it still cares about its image. It wasn’t much better for CNN, which aired 75 prime-time minutes of Donald Trump in what is best described as political porn. The Guardian summed it up as a “leviathan of lying, a juggernaut of junk, an ocean liner of mendacity” on America’s choppy political seas.

Here’s an update for those who avoid political news. CNN lost all credibility Wednesday evening by hosting a “town hall” for Donald Trump and an audience of Trump supporters just two days after the twice-impeached president was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Since a $5 million penalty isn’t enough to deter a wealthy man who rakes in more money from his supporters each time he says “witch hunt,” Trump continued insulting her during the town hall.

Predictably, the former president repeated his unfounded allegation that the 2020 election was stolen. He promised again to pardon January 6 rioters and accused Democrats of being autocrats, a term often used to describe him. Anecdotally, Trump’s rant was sufficiently offensive that many viewers changed the channel after only a few minutes.

That same morning, a federal court revealed 13 fraud and money laundering charges against Republican Rep. George Santos. Several involved especially heartless crimes in which the New York lawmaker allegedly defrauded programs to help jobless workers and COVID victims.

Legitimate news outlets have already proven that Santos lied to voters, with a resume filled with enough fabrications to make him look like Superman. Nevertheless, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy told reporters he would let the judicial system run its course before he decides what — if any — action to take against Santos. Options include expelling him from Congress with a two-thirds vote in the House. But McCarthy may keep Santos around because he needs to sustain the very thin GOP majority.

The week’s events displayed a complete absence of standards in two politicians and the Republican Party as a whole. And if there were any remaining questions about CNN’s aspiration to become another Fox News, the town hall answered them.

In the meantime, the GOP either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about the damage it has done to its credibility by allowing Trump to run for president under its banner and tolerating militants, bigots and insurrectionists in its tent. McCarthy’s ethical standards are still on trial: he must choose between defending the honor of the House of Representatives or protecting Santos’s seat from a new election.

This very bad week came on the heels of Chief Justice John Roberts’s decision to decline an appearance before a Senate committee. The committee wanted to discuss ethics reforms in the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, an issue trigged by the questionable actions of a Republican appointee, Justice Clarence Thomas.

But Congress does not need testimony from the chief justice to know the American people are getting an awful feeling about the honor of our national institutions and the people elected to run them. McCarthy should clean House now, Congress should impose a strict ethics code on the Supreme Court, and the Republican Party should adopt its own enforceable code to remove the bad apples that shame America and destroy confidence in our democracy.

William S. Becker is co-editor and a contributor to “Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government for the People,” a collection of more than 30 essays by American thought leaders on topics such as the Supreme Court’s perceived legitimacy. Becker has served in several state and federal government roles, including executive assistant to the attorney general of Wisconsin. He is currently executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), a nonpartisan climate policy think tank unaffiliated with the White House.