'He lies': GOP lawmaker who mentored McCarthy shreds his character ahead of tough Speaker vote

On Monday, the Washington Examinerreported that the former California GOP lawmaker who once mentored and employed House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is warning he cannot be trusted.

"You never know what’s inside, really," former California Rep. Bill Thomas (R), who employed McCarthy for years, said this week. "Kevin basically is whatever you want him to be. He lies. He’ll change the lie if necessary. How can anyone trust his word?'"

Thomas, who once represented the Bakersfield congressional district that McCarthy now represents and employed him as a congressional aide, previously took McCarthy to task in their hometown paper for his handling of the January 6 Committee.

Thomas was also displeased with the fact that McCarthy voted against certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory even after pro-Trump rioters violently stormed the United States Capitol building.

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"'It was as though they went to an extended lunch and came back and resumed their mission: reinforce, by your votes, the lies of the president," said Thomas, a former political science professor at Bakersfield College.

McCarthy originally called on Trump to resign in private after the January 6 attack, but subsequently leapt to the former president's defense, opposed the establishment of a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate, and boycotted naming any Republican members to the eventual select committee empaneled for the issue.

With Republicans winning the House narrowly in the 2022 midterm election, McCarthy is first in line for the Speakership but faces critical obstacles in securing the votes. A small bloc of hard-right Republicans are vowing never to back him for Speaker, and have enough votes in theory to deny him the necessary 218.