Republicans are incapable of choosing leadership that will not run cover for former President Donald Trump's lies and propaganda — a situation exemplified by their selection of far-right Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to succeed ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
That's the view of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who broke down the current state of the Republican Party on Thursday's edition of MSNBC's "The ReidOut."
"What do you make of the fact that, I mean, some of the key architects of the attempts to overthrow the election have been rewarded with more power?" said anchor Joy Reid. "The current Speaker of the House was one of the main people, if not the main person pushing the Big Lie, trying to get people to sign on to overthrow the election. Scott Perry, who sought a pardon, according to Cassidy Hutchinson. None of these people have paid a price. The people who have paid a price are people like Liz Cheney, who is out of power and out of office."
"Sadly, that's exactly right," agreed Schiff.
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"Indeed, when you look at the effort to replace McCarthy, Thomas Emmer, who was eminently qualified, was essentially disqualified because he wasn't a proponent of the Big Lie," Schiff continued. "And what we found out in that speakership fight was the prerequisite to being the leader of the Republican Party in Congress is you must be willing to lie for Donald Trump. You must be willing to undermine our democracy. If you're not, you're not qualified to run this conference. We did end up with a speaker who was very involved in the litigation to overturn this election and we still have a Judiciary Committee chairman who ignored subpoenas of the January 6th Committee and was also one of the architects in the House of overturning the election. The only ones who did pay a political price were Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, those who lived up to their oath of office."
"I think history will reflect very well on them," added Schiff. "But it has been a bitter shock to me and many others that the Lizes and Adams have been so few in number. That the vast, vast majority of Republicans cared far more about holding their office than they ever did about the oath of office. Or anything else."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Adam Schiff says Republicans can only pick a speaker who will "lie for Donald Trump"www.youtube.com
