Historian Michael Beschloss dropped the hammer on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Saturday morning after McCarthy announced he was directing the GOP heads of the "relevant" House committees to run interference for Donald Trump as he faces multiple criminal investigations.
Trump created a stir early Saturday morning when he claimed on Truth Social that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday — then encouraged his fans in his all-caps post: "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!"
That led Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to rant on Twitter, "Republicans in Congress MUST subpoena these communists and END this! We have the power to do it and we also have the power to DEFUND their salaries and departments! Enough of this!"
Moments later, McCarthy, the putative leader of the House Republicans, tweeted, "Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump. I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions."
After McCarthy's tweet was read on MSNBC's "The Saturday Show" by host Jonathan Capehart, Beschloss joined the host in expressing his disgust.
ALSO IN THE NEWS: Kevin McCarthy directs GOP committee heads to run interference for Trump after claim 'arrest' is imminent
"I'm totally with you, Jonathan, in the way that you have reacted to this almost disgraceful tweet that Kevin McCarthy has put out and I don't use that word often to describe speakers of the House," he began. "He is interfering with the process of the rule of law; this is a duly elected D.A. in New York who we don't even know what's going to happen yet or what the grand jury is going to do. But the speaker of the House has absolutely no business interfering with this process, siding with one side, Donald Trump's side, and also saying that he is going to investigate the use of federal funds to interfere."
"This is him talking, with our elections, in effort with what he calls, politically motivated prosecutors," he elaborated. "It's not his business to get involved in the legal process, and it also raises another question, Jonathan, which is as, you have said, Donald Trump has put out this statement only a few hours ago, calling on people to nationally protest his possible arrest. He is claiming he is going to be arrested."
"We don't know what's going to happen yet so, you have an ex-president calling for a protest we now know could turn into violence, as it did on the 6th of January, 2021. Hordes invaded the Capitol, we were in danger of killing the vice president, killing the speaker of the House, other members of the congress, the defiling of the House and Senate chambers," he explained. "That's what happened that day. But at least, as horrible as that was, you and I talked about it that day, at least you had a speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, where we could be sure that she would do her best to try to protect the Capitol against violent attack. After this statement by Kevin McCarthy, we have no such reassurance."
Watch below or at the link:
MSNBC 03 18 2023 11 34 03 youtu.be
