Liz Cheney Publicly Breaks With Kevin McCarthy, Sides With Pelosi

I never thought I’d see the day when Liz Cheney and Nancy Pelosi were both united against Kevin McCarthy’s tomfoolery and deflection, but that day has come, mark it well. McCarthy is a weak and unprincipled man — which makes him a perfect representation of today’s Republican party. Liz Cheney, who does display some backbone, has decided she’s had enough of McCarthy, apparently. Where they cannot agree to disagree is on the subject of the Capitol insurrection. Nancy Pelosi wanted to institute a 911-type commission to investigate the riot. McCarthy wants an investigation to include Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Cheney is calling him out on it. She told reporters Monday that the commission should solely focus on the riot. Axios:

What she’s saying: “What happened on Jan. 6 is unprecedented in our history, and I think that it’s very important that the commission be able to focus on that,” Cheney told reporters at the House GOP’s annual policy retreat in Florida, per Reuters.

• “I’m very concerned, as all my colleagues are, about the violence that we saw, the BLM, the Antifa violence last summer,” she added. “I think that’s a different set of issues, a different set of problems and a different set of solutions.

• “And so, I think it’s very important that the Jan. 6 commission stays focused on what happened on Jan. 6, and what led to that day.”

• Her comments support Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) position on the matter.

McCarthy put his foot in it on Sunday when Chris Wallace was asking him whether Trump told him that the rioters were “people more upset about the election than you are,” and McCarthy wouldn’t answer.

Kevin McCarthy refuses to answer Chris Wallace's question about whether it's true that Trump told him, "Well Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are" when McCarthy called and urged him to call off the insurrectionists on January 6 pic.twitter.com/cSYSPUs8OO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 25, 2021

McCarthy flip flops like a fish out of water and that’s because he is. He’s out of his depth. After the Capitol insurrection, he confided to his friend and colleague Rep. Patrick McHenry “Patrick, man, I’m down, I’m just really down.” According to the New York Times McHenry told him “You’re dazed, you have to try to think clearly.” That would be novel. If McCarthy did that, he might realize that if you come out one way on an issue, you need to stay there.

McCarthy initially came out against the insurrection and against Trump inciting a riot. Then he went back to his lap dog posture. That is probably what tore it for Liz Cheney.

As the end of the Trump presidency devolved into turmoil and violence, Mr. McCarthy faced a dilemma, one that has bedeviled his party for nearly five years: Should he cut Mr. Trump loose, as many Republicans were urging. Or should he keep trying to make it work with an ousted president who remains the most popular and motivating force inside the G.O.P.?

Mr. McCarthy chose the latter, and not for the first time. His extravagant efforts to ingratiate himself with Mr. Trump have earned him a reputation for being an alpha lap-dog inside Mr. Trump’s kennel of acolytes. Nine days after Mr. Trump departed Washington, there was Mr. McCarthy paying a visit to Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Florida estate, in an effort to “keep up a dialogue” with the volatile former president.

“He goes up and down with his anger,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Trump in a series of interviews during a recent 48-hour swing through Indiana and Iowa, and home to Bakersfield, Calif., which he has represented in Congress since 2007. “He’s mad at everybody one day. He’s mad at me one day.”

Now, nearly four months after Jan. 6, Mr. McCarthy continues to defend his support for Mr. Trump’s bogus assertions that the election was stolen from him. Friends say that he knows better and is as exasperated by Mr. Trump’s behavior as other top Republicans, but that he has made the calculation that the former president’s support is essential for his ambitions to become speaker after the 2022 elections, when Republicans have a decent chance to win back the House.

Pressed on whether he regretted working to overturn President Biden’s 2020 victory, Mr. McCarthy took the position that he did no such thing.

“We voted not to certify two states,” he said, referring to Arizona and Pennsylvania, whose slates of electoral votes Mr. McCarthy and fellow Republicans voted to challenge, despite offering no proof of fraud that would have altered the final tallies. But even if the Republicans’ challenge had been successful in those states, Mr. McCarthy argued, the electoral votes would not have been enough to tip the nationwide vote away from Mr. Biden. “And Joe Biden would still be sitting in the White House right now,” he said.

So what exactly was he trying to accomplish with his votes against certification on Jan. 6? “That was the only time that we could raise the issue that there was a question in the activities in those states,” Mr. McCarthy said.

There you have it from the horse’s mouth. McCarthy is tacitly admitting that he was putting the election objection out there as a balloon, to see if it would fly. McCarthy’s only interest is in being Speaker of the House in 2022. That’s what he lives for. If that means selling his soul to Trump, that’s already been done. We’ll see if he gets the benefit of his bargain. Meanwhile, Liz Cheney just took a powerful stance and the next time the House changes leadership, as it eventually will, Cheney may be the Speaker. If I had to bet today, that’s how I would call it. And Cheney would be a far better Speaker, no question whatsoever.