Saturday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Justice,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speculated on what could lie ahead for the House of Representatives as each caucus chooses its leaders.
According to McCarthy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was precariously close to not having the votes to win reelection as Speaker, given the threshold of 218 votes.
“We’ll have leadership races next week, and you’ll hear that she’ll win the leadership race,” he said. “But that does not make her Speaker. You have to have 218 votes on the floor. Last Congress, 15 Democrats voted against her. Ten of those Democrats are coming back to Congress. If 10 Democrats vote against her, she will not be Speaker. We will end up somewhere about 210 or further for the number of Republicans. So you know what could happen? She could lose as Speaker.”
McCarthy said if she did win, the margins would make it difficult for Pelosi to maintain control given divisions within the Democratic caucus.
“But if she wins as Speaker, you have AOC and the progressive socialists actually grow,” McCarthy continued. “They are fighting among themselves, tweeting at one another, pictures staring at one another, saying it’s a dumpster fire, screaming on their conference calls. I believe at the end of the day, the Republicans will run the floor because it will be our ideas that are stronger — that the American public had rejected defunding the police, dismantling America. We believe we can rebuild and restore the American way.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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