1 year ago
California Rep. Adam Schiff and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz agree on at least one thing: They don't trust Kevin McCarthy.
“I don't know what happens to McCarthy's speakership, but frankly the problem he's having is we don't trust him,” Schiff (D-Calif.) said Monday during an interview on MSNBC. “He broke his word with the president over the debt ceiling deal. His own conference doesn't trust him.”
If Schiff’s comments sound familiar, it’s because they are. Gaetz, the Republican hardliner threatening to launch an effort to boot McCarthy from leadership, said as much during an interview on CNN Sunday.
“[The] one thing everybody has in common is that nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
McCarthy has brushed Gaetz’s threat aside. “If somebody wants to remove [me] because I want to be the adult in the room, go ahead and try,” McCarthy said on Saturday, adding: “If I have to risk my job for standing up for the American public, I will do that.”
But Schiff’s comments could cut the Republican leader deeper. If more than a handful of House Republicans move against the speaker, he’ll need support from Democrats to keep his gavel.
So far, Democrats don’t publicly seem keen on the idea. And Schiff, a prominent member of a caucus with a tense relationship with McCarthy, could hold sway over other members of the conference.
McCarthy and Schiff have battled over the Jan. 6 investigation, which Schiff helped lead in Congress, and McCarthy vowed to remove Schiff from the House Intelligence Committee over comments Schiff made about reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop. The rift between the California politicians reached a head in January, when McCarthy followed through on that promise, blocking Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from the panel.
“I cannot put partisan loyalty ahead of national security, and I cannot simply recognize years of service as the sole criteria for membership on this essential committee. Integrity matters more,” McCarthy wrote in a letter to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the time.
On Monday, Schiff did not indicate if he would vote to remove McCarthy from his position.
“He doesn't seem to stand for anything except the desire to hold on to the gavel. And ultimately we'll see whether he survives,” Schiff said.
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