During an appearance this week on The View, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) tore into the lack of constructive leadership that has been shown by House GOP leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Essentially, McCarthy — who could become House Speaker in the event that Republicans win back control of the House in the midterm elections — seems like a stooge. He’s beholden to the interests of extremist provocateurs like Donald Trump himself, consistently wilting in the face of challenges and letting the bonkers Trump train keep flying ahead. McCarthy has resisted pushes for accountability from Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) over instances of promoting violence, and — among many other problems — he’s stuck right by the former president through Trump’s consistent propagation of violence-inciting lies about the last election.
Initially, McCarthy acknowledged Trump’s role in driving the Capitol attack — and then he visited Trump at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort, where the duo were photographed together. As Kinzinger commented:
‘This is a man that, basically, the day after the insurrection, blamed Donald Trump and two weeks after that was down at Mar-a-Lago politically reviving Donald Trump’s career with that picture, and now he does his bidding. He answers to Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar; these are the people he’s now responsible to. So that kind of a person, though he very well may get and want the title of Speaker of the House, that’s not leadership. That is somebody more-than-willing to at least say that conspiracies have some merit… We have had some bad leaders, but we have a great tradition of leaders leading. That is lacking right now. Certainly, that lacks in Kevin McCarthy, and we have to admit it. We have to talk about it, because his cell phone’s going to be ringing off the hook by Marjorie Taylor Greene, if he becomes speaker.’
Check out Kinzinger’s comments below:
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is also among those who have expressed serious concerns about what might happen in the event of Kevin McCarthy becoming House Speaker. As he saw things, McCarthy “will do whatever Donald Trump wants him to do, and if Donald Trump wants him [as a hypothetical House Speaker] to overturn the next election because Trump loses again, McCarthy will do it, and that is a real and present threat to our democracy.” Technically, Speakers of the House don’t have to be members of it, and there’s been talk among certain far-right allies of the former president of making him the House Speaker if Republicans control the chamber… but there’s no apparent indication that a majority of Republicans would actually back that move.
