Category: GOP civil war

5 Stories From This Past Year That Prove Kevin McCarthy Is Not Deserving of House Speaker Role

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Fox News host Tucker Carlson perhaps summed up yesterday’s chaos in the House the best, explaining why some true conservatives are not willing to vote for Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.

“Kevin McCarthy of California was going to be Speaker,” Carlson said. “But then a group of 20 Republican members stopped him.”

He added, “They stopped him because they decided that Kevin McCarthy is not conservative enough to represent a party that’s just taking back the House from Nancy Pelosi.”

“And they are definitely right about that.”

RELATED: Donald Trump Loudly Backs Kevin McCarthy for Speaker, Blames Mitch McConnell For Chaos in the House

McCarthy, though, has the strong backing of former President Donald Trump. He sports an 88% rating in the current session from the conservative Heritage Action group (though his lifetime score from FreedomWorks is under 70%.)

He even has support from consistently strong MAGA supporters like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

So what is the problem here? Why are 20 other right-leaning Republicans refusing to support his speakership?

“McCarthy is not especially conservative,” Carlson explains. “He is, in fact, ideologically agnostic. He’s flexible.”

And that flexibility has true conservatives concerned that he will be awarded the role and revert back to the all-too-familiar face of a false leader for the Republican message – like the Boehners and Ryans we’ve seen in the recent past.

Or, to revert back to McCarthy from 2012 to 2018, when his Heritage Action group rating was nearly indiscernible from Adam Kinzinger, ranging between 40% and 57%.

With that, we list off five stories from this past year alone that prove Kevin McCarthy may not be worthy of getting a clean vote for Speaker of the House.

Tried to Get MAGA Conservatives Banned From Twitter

In a move that is little different than that of Democrats and the FBI, McCarthy openly pondered the possibility of getting conservatives banned from social media.

Audio surfaced in April of the lawmaker denouncing fellow Republicans – particularly America First Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and Mo Brooks (R-AL) – for ‘putting other lawmakers at risk’ with their comments about the 2020 election.

“Well, he’s putting people in jeopardy, and he doesn’t need to be doing this,” McCarthy said of Gaetz for referring to those unwilling to fight the 2020 election results as ‘anti-Trump.’ “We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know?”

“Can’t they take their Twitter accounts away, too?” the California Republican would later ask.

His words prompted Carlson to denounce McCarthy as “a puppet of the Democratic Party.”

Caught On Audio Discussing Blaming Trump For Capitol Riot

More audiotapes released the following month featured McCarthy describing Trump’s actions surrounding the January 6th riot at the Capitol as “atrocious.”

He would later discuss options such as invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office but ultimately decided it would take “too long.”

“Look, what the president did is atrocious and totally wrong,” McCarthy said of Trump in a call recorded on January 8th.

What Trump did was urge protesters concerned about election integrity to make their voices “peacefully” and “patriotically” heard.

Actively Worked to Oust MAGA Republican Madison Cawthorn, Other America First Candidates

The Washington Post reported in September that McCarthy “worked” previously “to deny (Madison) Cawthorn a second term in office,” saying he had “lost my trust.”

Cawthorn had been endorsed by Trump at the time, but had accused members of Congress of using drugs and inviting him to an “orgy.”

The well-planned targeting by McCarthy didn’t simply focus on Madison Cawthorn. The House Republican leader also sought to keep other MAGA candidates out of Congress.

The Post wrote that Kevin McCarthy and his political machine were working to “systematically weed out GOP candidates” they felt might give him “trouble” as House Speaker.

It was also an effort to eliminate conservative candidates in districts where more moderate candidates were perceived to have a better chance of winning.

Said Before the Midterms GOP Would NOT Impeach Biden

McCarthy, just a couple of weeks before the midterm elections, took a motivating issue for many voters of impeaching President Biden and declared it would not happen.

In an interview with Punchbowl News, McCarthy admitted that should the GOP win back congressional control in the 2022 midterms, they would not pursue impeachment.

“I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all,” said McCarthy. “If anyone ever rises to that occasion, you have to, but I think the country wants to heal and … start to see the system that actually works.”

He later lamented the fact that Democrats had sought the impeachment of Trump before he took office and suggested the GOP had to be better than that.

“You watch what the Democrats did – they all came out and said they would impeach before Trump was ever sworn in,” he said. “There wasn’t a purpose for it.”

If anything, that means they lowered the bar and that’s the level at which the GOP must fight back. If Trump were President and Democrats controlled the House, do you think they’d pump the breaks on impeachment and insist the country needs to heal?

Pretended He’d Pull Back on Aid to Ukraine

McCarthy announced in late October that when the GOP takes control of the House, Ukraine would no longer be the benefactor of a “blank check” from the United States government.

“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” McCarthy said. “They just won’t do it. … It’s not a free blank check.”

About a week later, allies of the Republican lawmaker were furiously backpedaling on the statement.

“McCarthy was not saying, ‘We wouldn’t spend money.’ McCarthy was saying, ‘We’re gonna be accountable to the taxpayer for every dollar we spend,’” one lawmaker told CNN.

It was an effort, CNN said, to “soothe the House’s senior defense hawks.”

Which is a super-neat way to say he was talking out of both sides of his mouth.

The House will again convene at noon today with a fourth round of voting for Speaker of the House to be likely.

Trump has urged those in opposition to McCarthy’s speakership to “close the deal” and “take the victory.”

With this list of his behavior in recent memory, we’re not sure it would be a great victory.

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Weak McCarthy Might Lead to First ‘Floor Fight’ for House Speaker in 100 Years

Posted on by Becky Noble

The first order of business when the new Republican-led House convenes in January will be to elect a new Speaker. After the midterm election, McCarthy was chosen by Republicans for the GOP nomination for Speaker.

But that doesn’t mean all Republicans are on board – and the GOP’s margin in the House is razor-thin after the “Red Wave” turned into a Red Dribble. Meaning, McCarthy’s next hurdle will be to secure the 218 votes needed to become Speaker.

With Republicans holding a slim majority in the House, McCarthy can ill afford any defectors. No more than four, to be precise, if he can’t draw any Democrats to his side.

But a lonely few conservatives have already stated their opposition, vowing not to vote for McCarthy. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), one of the leaders of the House Freedom Caucus, said:

“He doesn’t have the votes. Some of the stages of grief include denial, so there will be some denial and then there’ll be the stage of bargaining where people are trying to figure out … will there be some kind of consensus candidate that emerges.”

The question might be, are House Republicans prepared for a floor fight that hasn’t happened in 100 years? 

RELATED: Democrat Adam Schiff Suggests Complying With Subpoenas is Optional, Now

A New Era

Whether the Speaker of the House ends up being Kevin McCarthy or someone else, chances are things will be very different from the Pelosi era. After decades in the House, Nancy Pelosi refined her skills as a master manipulator of votes when she needed them.

Another possible wrench thrown in the works for McCarthy, although not a likely one, has former President Donald Trump continuing to live rent free in the collective minds of Democrats.

During an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” earlier this month, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) suggested to host Margaret Brennan that certain “far right” House members may vote for Trump to be Speaker.

Raskin stated, “It’s a real problem for Kevin McCarthy now, because there are certain pro-Trumpists within his House caucus who refuse to accept that he’s really with Trump and they want to get rid of McCarthy. They might just vote for Trump.”

Per the Constitution, the Speaker of the House is not required to be a member of Congress, but the chances of Trump becoming Speaker are somewhere between zero and zero.

RELATED: Classic 2014 Trump Tweet Highlights Biden’s 2022 Foreign Policy Failure

Not Everyone is On Board

Currently, five GOP House members have stated they will not support Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker. If Republicans end up with 222 seats, and all 435 members vote, McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes.

In short, if McCarthy can’t get the votes needed, the House will run as many elections as it takes until some candidate passes the mark. The last time that happened was in 1923.

One Republican House member actively opposing McCarthy is Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). He has laid the less-than-stellar GOP midterm performance at the feet of McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

According to the Washington Examiner, Gaetz has been making phone calls to colleagues to convince them of another choice. Gaetz said in a statement, “Just as I have done after every election, you can count on me having conversations with my colleagues on matters of policy, politics, and leadership.”

McCarthy has also appeared to go soft on any possible impeachment inquiries, of President Joe Biden or any other member of the Biden’s cabinet. Prior to the election, McCarthy was interviewed by CNN’s Melanie Zanona, who asked him if “impeachment is on the table.”

McCarthy’s response was to pour cold water on it. 

Zanona pressed McCarthy and said, “Some of your members already calling for impeachment. What do you say to those members?”

It was here that McCarthy may have given a squishy preview of things to come and replied:

“One thing I’ve known about the land of America, it’s the rule of law. And we will hold the rule of law and we won’t play politics with this. We’ll never use impeachment for political purposes. That doesn’t mean if something rises to the occasion it would not be used. At any other time, it wouldn’t matter if it’s Democrats or Republicans. But the idea of what Democrats have done, what Adam Schiff has done, is treacherous… We’re better than that. We need to get our nation back on track. That’s what the Commitment to America does.”

Matt Gaetz summed up his assessment of McCarthy, saying, “House Republicans need a leader with credibility across every spectrum of the GOP conference in order to be a capable fighting force for the American people. That person is not Kevin McCarthy.” 

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The post Weak McCarthy Might Lead to First ‘Floor Fight’ for House Speaker in 100 Years appeared first on The Political Insider.