Tag: Kevin McCarthy

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Congress GOP Kevin McCarthy

McCarthy’s Constituents Trash Him As He Retires: ‘Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out’

As he prepares to leave Congress and head back to the California district he’s represented since 2007, Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy may be anticipating that he’ll be well-received by his constituents.

But based on a fascinating report from Andrew Gumbel of The Guardian, many residents of the district — the largest city of which is Bakersfield — aren’t exactly eager to see McCarthy back in in their midst.

“If you went through the wringer he went through, I suspect there’s a little humiliation, a little embarrassment. Maybe he’s licking his wounds and wants to go off into the sunset,” said Greg Perrone, president of the Greater Bakersfield Republican Assembly, an activist group that hews to McCarthy’s right. “Still, I’m a little disappointed that he didn’t finish the term that he was elected to serve. That’s not what we expect from our elected leaders.”

Consider some of the letters to the editor of The Bakersfield Californian, many of which are filled with stinging rebukes of McCarthy, including calling him quitter for retiring early.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Kevin,” two of them wrote last week. One added: “You haven’t represented us in a very long time.”

Even Bakersfield mayor Karen Goh gave McCarthy the back of her hand, saying she was “too busy” to provide even a brief quote regarding the former speaker.

Some in the district complain that McCarthy has never been interested in their needs and has instead spent most of his time in other parts of California in an effort to raise fundraising dollars for himself and the GOP, which doesn’t exactly do them any good.

McCarthy’s district, California’s 20th, extends well beyond Bakersfield into the farmlands of Kern and Tulare counties and into the suburbs of Fresno, the largest city in the Central Valley. It was redrawn before the last election to make it more solidly Republican, relieving McCarthy of any significant pressure to fight for his own congressional seat. He scarcely visited during last year’s campaign, focusing instead on raising hundreds of millions of dollars for more competitive districts in California and the rest of the country.

For his part, McCarthy is making it clear he’s still interested in politics on a national level, especially if a future Republican president has a cabinet post that needs to be filled by an insider who has lots of contacts in Congress and can always be counted when it comes time to ask donors to write a check or two for the GOP effort.

Historically, McCarthy will go down as a lesson in the personal greed for power that drove both his rise to the top and the crash that left him as little more than a historical footnote who is only interested in what he can do for himself.

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GOP History Social Media

Kevin McCarthy Gets Brutally Fact-Checked For His ‘Transparent Lie’ About US History

Though he was once the most powerful member of the House of Representatives, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) probably won’t ever be invited to teach a class on American history.

A tweet McCarthy posted Sunday has come under criticism for being utterly ignorant of warfare and the ulterior motives of U.S. foreign policy.

The posting, which included a video, claims, “In every single war that America has fought, we have never asked for land afterward — except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.”

Of course, as almost anyone who has taken the most rudimentary course in history knows, McCarthy’s claim is complete bullshit.

As a matter of fact, McCarthy’s own California congressional district wouldn’t exist if Mexico hadn’t turned over that land to the United States at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848.

That set off a wave of mockery and history lessons aimed directly at the California Republican.

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Congress GOP Kevin McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy On Matt Gaetz: Congress Would Benefit ‘Tremendously’ If He’s Expelled

Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was asked today if he thought Congress would be better off if Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is expelled from the body and made it clear that he still blames the Florida Republican for his ouster from the top post in the House.

Manu Raju was interviewing McCarthy and asked him directly, “How much would the Republican Party benefit if he were no longer a member of the House, in your opinion?” 

McCarthy replied:

“Oh, tremendously. I mean, people have to earn the right to be here. And I just think from, I mean, he’ll admit to you personally, he doesn’t have a conservative bent in his philosophy and just the nature of what he focuses on.”

So does that mean Gaetz needs to be removed? Raju inquired.

McCarthy: “That’s up to the conference. But I mean, I don’t believe the conference will ever heal if there’s no consequences for the action.”

You may recall that it was Gaetz who led the effort that resulted in McCarthy becoming the first House speaker in U.S. history to be removed from the post, as CNN reported in October.

Gaetz said Monday that he has “enough Republicans” to either push McCarthy from the speakership or make him cut a deal with Democrats to remain in power.

“I have enough Republicans where at this point next week, one of two things will happen. Kevin McCarthy won’t be the speaker of the House, or he’ll be the speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats. And I’m at peace with either result, because the American people deserve to know who governs them,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.

Reportedly, the main reason Gaetz wanted McCarthy ousted is because the former speaker refused to put an end to an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation of Gaetz for alleged drug use and sex with underage girls, both of which could indeed cost him his House seat.

Sounds like McCarthy is now ready for some major payback.

 

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Congress GOP Kevin McCarthy

Disgraced Kevin McCarthy Plans To Resign Before His Term In Office Ends

Disgraced ex-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is planning to resign from his seat in Congress before the end of his term in 2024, according to reports from Politico and CNN.

Mediaite notes

“The ex-Speaker has said he does not intend to make another attempt to wield the gavel — the memory of the excruciating fifteen rounds of votes it took him to win it in January is undoubtedly still a raw wound — but the news he might forgo running for re-election on the November 2024 ballot and even resign before the end of his term was new Friday.”

Olivia Beavers of Politico notes that McCarthy “has made clear he plans to stay at least through the speakership election that begins next week before ending his House career…in order to help the party steady itself after a seismic shakeup.”

Additionally, the former speaker is said to have told his GOP colleagues, “I’m going to spend time with my family.”

Despite McCarthy’s plans, some of his House Republican allies insist they will enter his name into nomination when a vote for the next speaker is held.

One of those, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), says McCarthy is needed now more than ever:

“Each day that goes by without a Speaker, the House is paralyzed to act on the dangers bearing down on us. Each day brings us closer to a power-sharing arrangement that will move the House sharply to the left and eliminate the only political counterweight in our elected government to the woke left.”

“The only workable outcome is to restore Kevin McCarthy as Speaker under party rules that respect and enforce the right of the majority party to elect him,” McClintock added. “This depends entirely on several of the dissidents to disenthrall themselves from their decision and to repair the damage before it is too late. I appeal to them to act while there is still time.”

The two most frequently mentioned names to replace McCarthy are Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Steve Scalise (R-LA). Jordan has announced he will seek the post while Scalise is said to be considering whether or not to toss his hat into the ring.

 

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Congress GOP Kevin McCarthy

Lauren Boebert MELTS DOWN When Asked If McCarthy Is About To Be Ousted As Speaker

Things are not going well for the House Republican caucus, and it has everything to do with the fact that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) managed to pass a 45-day spending bill on Saturday that will avert a shutdown of the federal goverment.

House Democrats crossed the aisle to provide the necessary votes for the spending package, and that has left many on the far right wing of the GOP furious, suggesting that McCarthy needs to be booted as Speaker.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was asked about the temporary spending bill by CNN’s Manu Raju, and she also sounded ticked off that federal offices wouldn’t be shuttered.

“We should have forced them to come to the negotiating table and come to conference and hash out our differences with these four appropriation bills before there was another payday that was at risk of being missed,” Boebert told Raju.

Does that mean Boebert wants to give McCarthy the boot?

“That isn’t what we’re talking about right now.”

“Well, Matt Gaetz has said that if he (McCarthy) relies on Democratic votes, he will no longer be Speaker,” Raju noted.

Boebert snapped:

“I’m not Matt Gaetz.”

“My name is Lauren Boebert. I represent Colorado’s third district and my focus is getting the federal government funded as we ought to with 12 individual spending bills, like we promised everyone in January.”

The Colorado Republican added: “Unfortunately, now we’re at 45 days of the same bipartisan muscle memory of a straight up and down vote and ‘whatever’s in it is good with us.'”

Gaetz, it should be noted, attempted to call a vote that would have pushed McCarthy out as Speaker, but his motion was ignored by the the congressman presiding over the House at the time, leaving Gaetz angry and humiliated, according to reports.