'Strategic miscalculation': Ex-Trump staffer stunned McCarthy never sought Dem votes
For the first time in the history of the United States, the Speaker of the House has been removed by a vote of Congress, following far-right Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filing a motion to vacate the chair — and throwing the House into chaos and uncertainty.
On CNN Tuesday, former Trump White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin reflected on how McCarthy made a huge blunder by not seriously trying to get help from Democrats.
"[Assistant House Democratic Leader] Jim Clyburn on the floor tonight says that a lot of Democrats were upset with McCarthy because of what he said on 'Face the Nation' this weekend, blaming Democrats for bringing the country to the brink of a government shutdown," said analyst Abby Phillip. "To me, that is not just about that particular moment."
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"For Democrats, it clearly signified that McCarthy is not reformed," Phillip continued. "He is not interested in doing the right thing for the right reasons. He still has his deeply partisan political hat on. And I think that as Democrats looked at the situation and said, is this someone we can work with, is this someone who has the best interests of the body at heart, those comments really cut against that, and clearly hurt him according to Clyburn. Some Democrats that might have even considered voting present, they all rank and file went with the entire group's consensus, which was to not bail McCarthy out in this moment. And it probably didn't have to be quite like this if he had played it a bit of a different way."
"I think it goes back even further than that," said Griffin. "If you think of how Kevin McCarthy assumed the Speakership, it was by making tremendous concessions to the far-right flank, from giving video footage to Tucker Carlson of the January 6th insurrection to the Capitol, to putting Freedom Caucus members on the Rules Committee, to changing threshold for the motion to vacate. He set up a Speakership that, at that time, people were saying would likely be one of the shortest in history. Surely enough, the same agents of chaos who made it very difficult 15 rounds for him to become Speaker are pulling what they are now. This is kind of a strategic miscalculation by McCarthy."
"I'm shocked there was no bigger effort to try to whip some Democratic support today, even on the margins to try to cut some deals and see if you can pull over even half a dozen of them, could have gotten him over the line, or get them to vote present," Griffin added.
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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