House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wants the Speaker’s gavel in 2023. He’ll offer himself to his party’s graven image to get it. Axios:
Kevin McCarthy is signaling he’ll institutionalize key Trumpian priorities if he takes over as House speaker next year — aggressive tactics targeting undocumented immigrants, liberals and corporate America.
Why it matters: He’d govern with an edge and agenda in stark contrast not just to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) but to Paul Ryan, the last Republican in the role. McCarthy’s vision would empower populists and pugilists to complete the Republican makeover Donald Trump drove this far.
Jonathan Swan contrasts McCarthy’s approach with those of former Republican Speaker Paul Ryan:
- Where Ryan focused on tax cuts and fostered friendly relations with corporate America, McCarthy is publicly excoriating the Chamber of Commerce, threatening crippling regulations on social media companies and planning to inject an anti-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mindset into the work of every congressional committee possible.
- Where Ryan tried to maintain civil relationships across the aisle, McCarthy promises to strip high-profile Democrats of their committee assignments.
“Many major corporations condemned former President Trump and after Jan. 6, cut their financial ties and disavowed Republicans who objected to certifying President Biden’s victory,” Swan explains.
Trump gave corporations tax cuts. They gave him the bottom of their shoes. Retribution will be the name of the game with McCarthy as Speaker. It’s what “defeated former president” Donald Trump wants. It’s the sacrifice McCarthy hopes to lay at Trump’s feet.
Swan adds, “Trump’s had plenty of opportunities since to attack McCarthy. But unlike Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell — whom Trump attacks at every opportunity — the former president has been sparing to McCarthy, suggesting he probably wouldn’t block his path to speaker.”
That is because McCarthy has dirt on Trump’s actions/inactions during the Jan. 6 insurrection that Trump wants to remain hidden. If McCarthy wants Trump’s support in his bid for Speaker, he will keep his mouth shut.
“Sure, next question,” McCarthy told reporters who asked in May 2021 if he would testify before an independent commission looking into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Rarely does a politician give such a curt, unambigious response.
That was then. And now?
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday night that he will refuse to voluntarily give information sought by the selection committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a stance that will put pressure on the committee to subpoena him.
The House investigation sent McCarthy a letter requesting information he may have regarding events leading to, during, and after the riot that breached the Capitol. McCarthy spoke that day to Trump and to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. McCarthy now brands the Jan. 6 investigation illegitimate.
“It is not serving any legislative purpose. The committee’s only objective is to attempt to damage its political opponents – acting like the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee one day and the [U.S. Department of Justice] the next,” he said.
“As a representative and the leader of the minority party, it is with neither regret nor satisfaction that I have concluded to not participate with this select committee’s abuse of power that stains this institution today and will harm it going forward,” McCarthy said.
Not to mention that answering questions on cameras that will beam McCarthy’s face onto TV screens at Mar-a-Lago will not help his bid for Speaker.
“The House voted in December to hold Meadows in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena issued by the committee,” reports CNBC. McCarthy could face a subpoena from the committee should he fail to answer the panel’s questions voluntarily.
It is not clear whom McCarthy considers the higher authority, a House investigatory committee or a twice-impeached, disgraced, and defeated former president with state and federal prosecutors nipping at his heels.