1 year ago
With a government shutdown looming, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been fielding attacks from fellow Republicans accusing him of failing to lead his party through the chaos.
Still, he has vowed to push forward: “I’ve told all of Congress you’re not going to go home. We’re going to continue to work through this,” McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol on Monday. “Things that are tough sometimes are worth it.”
The attacks are likely to continue as the Sept. 30 deadline approaches. Here are some of the harshest rebukes McCarthy has seen so far:
Rep. Victoria Spartz: 'Weak ... another worthless Congress'
Spartz, a first-term representative from Indiana, has directly lambasted the House speaker for being “weak,” blaming him for being unable to get the far-right members of his party in line.
“It is a shame that our weak Speaker cannot even commit to having a commission to discuss our looming fiscal catastrophe,” she said in a statement on Monday. “Our founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves to see how this institution is betraying our Republic for personal political ambitions and our children will be ashamed of another worthless Congress.”
McCarthy hit back, saying that if Spartz, who said she won’t seek reelection, “is concerned about fighting stronger, I wish she would’ve run again and not quit.”
“I’m not quitting, I’m gonna continue to work for the American public,” McCarthy told reporters.
Rep. Matt Gaetz: McCarthy is 'lying like a dead dog'
Feuds between Gaetz and McCarthy are common, but the Florida representative has used the shutdown as a launching pad to call for McCarthy’s removal as speaker. That was most clear after Gaetz apparently left a motion to remove the House speaker in a bathroom at the Capitol on Tuesday.
Gaetz also accused McCarthy of being misogynistic after the speaker clapped back against Spartz.
“He’s been reckless and unhinged and rattled and misogynist in how he’s attacked those who are making a substantive argument,” Gaetz told NewsMax on Tuesday, referencing how McCarthy criticized Spartz for saying she won’t seek reelection but hasn’t rebuked male lawmakers in the past for similar decisions.
The pair also traded shots last week after McCarthy accused Gaetz, who has been investigated for ethics violations multiple times, of colluding with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) to work against him.
“Matt is working with Eric Swalwell, but let me be very clear,” McCarthy told CNN. “Matt is upset about an ethics complaint. I don’t care what they threaten against me. I’m not gonna interject into an independent committee like ethics, and I’m not going to put Swalwell back on the intel committee. So, they can do whatever they want.”
Gaetz, in turn, accused the House speaker of “lying like a dead dog.”
“I am the most investigated man in the entire Congress, and right there you saw Kevin McCarthy lying like a dead dog because I have never asked him to interfere in any ethics matter,” Gaetz told MSNBC last Wednesday, adding that he’s “a sad and pathetic man who lies to hold onto power.”
Rep. Nancy Mace: 'He ought to take ownership'
Mace blamed McCarthy for not holding individual votes on spending bills, predicting that the speaker would lean on temporary solutions such as continuing resolutions.
"That doesn't give a budget for the country, and that doesn't give consistency for the economy, for businesses that are trying to grow," the South Carolina representative told ABC on Sunday. "And both sides, quite frankly, have put us in this position and he ought to take ownership of it and so, too, should Republicans."
Rep. Ken Buck: McCarthy's promises are 'coming due'
Buck agreed that a continuing resolution would be necessary to avoid a shutdown, but with several unresolved issues facing the House GOP, McCarthy could soon be in hot water, he said.
“On the one hand, we’ve got to pass a continuing resolution,” the Colorado representative told MSNBC last Sunday. “We also have the impeachment issue. And we also have members of the House, led by my good friend, Chip Roy, who are concerned about policy issues. They want riders in the appropriations bills, amendments in the appropriations bills that guarantee some type of security on our Southern border.”
It’s a “perfect storm” of issues, Buck said.
“So you take those things put together, and Kevin McCarthy, the speaker, has made promises on each of those issues to different groups. And now it is all coming due at the same time,” Buck said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis aligns with insurgent conservatives
McCarthy was one of former President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress — so it’s his fault that the government has racked up so much debt in the past few years, DeSantis said.
“Kevin McCarthy says I’m a little different from Donald Trump. I agree,” DeSantis posted on social media Monday. “In Florida, we run budget surpluses. We’ve paid down our debt. I’ve kept every one of my promises. Meanwhile, McCarthy and Trump worked together to add $7 trillion — more debt than our country racked up in its first 200 years — to the debt in just four years.”
The rebuke followed McCarthy telling Fox News that Trump is a more formidable presidential candidate than DeSantis, who has polled in a distant second place for the GOP ticket.
The attack returns DeSantis to his own political roots as a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, a group that is now a key focal point for opposition to McCarthy and his proposed deal for spending reductions.
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