House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) publicly called out his Republican counterpart Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Monday for mulling a budget deal with Democrats.
Talking about the looming Republican takeover of the House, McCarthy underscored that Republicans will have far more leverage in about a month than they do now and fretted a long-term deal could effectively lock the GOP out of enacting major budgeting reforms for some 10 months.
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“We’re 28 days from Republicans having the gavel, we would be stronger in any negotiation. Any Republican trying to work with them is wrong,” McCarthy told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. “Why would you want to work on anything if we [don’t] have the gavel inside Congress … wait until we’re in charge.”
Ingraham, who praised McConnell for being “so smart in so many ways,” pressed McCarthy on if he was directing his remarks toward the Kentucky sage. McCarthy replied “yes” but did not directly answer if he had discussed the matter privately with him. McConnell hinted to his caucus that he leaned toward passing an omnibus spending package before the year’s end, the Hill reported.
McCarthy emphasized that when the GOP gets the House, it will have the leverage to scrap extraneous expenditures from the budget and apply pressure on the Biden administration in key areas.
During the interview, McCarthy also slammed President Joe Biden’s stewardship of the border, noting he recommended the government put Navy seals with the border agents and suggested the government scrap the vaccine mandate for service members.
He also countered Biden’s reported claims that he flashed his veto pen during the last meeting with McCarthy and McConnell. Biden recalled at a fundraiser that as the Republican leaders were “telling me what they could do,” he lifted his pen.
“They said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘A pen. Veto,’” Biden added, per Breitbart.
“He didn’t say that. He lifted up his pen because I said he was playing politics. And he lifted up his pen and put it down, shut up. And then he came back to talk to me afterwards and said that ‘I wasn’t trying to be political,'” McCarthy countered.
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Republicans came up dramatically short of expectations in the House and failed to recapture the Senate, with one outstanding race in Georgia set to conclude Tuesday. As a result of tighter-than-expected margins, McCarthy is facing a rocky road to the speaker’s gavel, staring down key GOP defections with limited wiggle room.
McConnell managed to reclaim his post after besting Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) despite fierce opposition from former President Donald Trump, who has backed McCarthy.
