Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who is retiring at the end of this term, has a warning for conservatives he says are fostering an "absurd" goal of reigning in the powers of the House speakership while hoping for "conservative outcomes".
In an exit interview with Politico, McHenry said that a strong Congress was essential to balance the powers of the executive branch.
"What Congress has done since the Progressive Era is hand away power to agencies in the executive branch — and what we’ve done since ’94 is diminish Congress’ power, which is actually completely out of alignment for what the Founding Fathers wanted. They wanted a strong legislative branch to counter the executive branch," McHenry said.
He continued:
"What we’ve formulated is a strong speakership on behalf of the House. So the opening day of Congress, we give a majority of the power of the institution to the speaker. That’s the reason why it’s such a difficult damn vote, because you give the speaker so much power. And so we’re in this situation where we have a whole group of people that want to diminish the powers of the speaker and think that it’s going to lead to more conservative outcomes, and I think that’s absurd. I think it’s dumb. I think it’s wrong-headed and historically inaccurate.
"Diminishing the role of the speaker, the motion to vacate — that has been fully weaponized. It’s been fully weaponized by people that are quite selfish in their views, that are not institutionalists and don’t actually get more conservative policy as a result of it. And history will show that."
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McHenry filled in as temporary House Speaker for three weeks in 2023 after a GOP coup fomented by then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) led to the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The situation ultimately resulted in the election of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), who now faces a confidence vote on Friday after MAGA Republicans accused him of capitulating to Democrats with the recent spending bill vote.
President-elect Donald Trump officially endorsed Johnson's re-election to the speakership in a TruthSocial post on Monday, writing, "Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man," he wrote. "He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!"