Kevin McCarthy has already ensured House won't be able to 'execute its most basic functions’: conservative
Electing a House speaker is typically a drama-free formality, but conservative Charlie Sykes said last week's chaotic rollout of the incoming Republican majority showed freshly minted speaker Kevin McCarthy won't be able to ensure the most basic duties are performed.
McCarthy finally won the position on the 15th ballot, after giving up major concessions to the right-wing Freedom Caucus, and Sykes told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" the "chaos and dysfunction" seen during the speaker vote was already baked into the House under his leadership.
"The real men of political genius running the Republican Party are not going after the military and intel, now they're pivoting to threatening a debt crisis and demanding cuts in Social Security and Medicare," Sykes said. "What could possibly go wrong with all of that? I think that the chaos that you saw in the House last week is just a small preview of what the next two years are going to look like. There are legitimate questions about whether or not the House of Representatives will be able to execute its most basic functions -- paying the bills, keeping the nation from going into debt default, all of those things that, you know, should be automatic."
McCarthy gave away too much to a GOP faction with no interest in governing, Sykes said.
"Kevin McCarthy has created a situation where it's going to be very, very difficult to just do the normal job of legislating," he said. "Look, I think it's a good idea that legislators should be able to read the bills, but when you put three members of the Freedom Caucus on the Rules Committee, when you basically give a veto power to any individual in that caucus, it's going to be almost impossible for Kevin McCarthy to compromise, to negotiate, to make deals or to actually do the job of governing, and I think the people ought to realize that we're moving, as of today, it's not just about Kevin McCarthy anymore. It is about how much chaos and dysfunction that we're going to be seeing in this country over the next few months, next few years."
Leave a Comment
Related Post