Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was accused Tuesday of elbowing one of the eight Republicans who voted to strip him of the gavel last month.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told CNN that McCarthy (R-Calif.) hit him with a “clean shot to the kidneys” as the former president walked past Burchett after a House Republican conference meeting.
NPR reporter Claudia Grisales, who was speaking with Burchett at the time, tweeted that the impact nearly knocked the 59-year-old Tennesseean off her feet.
“Why did you elbow me in the back, Kevin?” Burchett yelled at the former spokesman, according to audio of the exchange. “Hey Kevin, do you have guts!? Moron.”
Burchett then went after McCarthy, 58, who denied doing anything inappropriate.
“I didn’t elbow you in the back,” McCarthy said, according to Grisales.
“You have no guts, you did it… the journalist said it right there, what kind of chicken move is that?” Burchett said before adding: “You’re pathetic, man, you’re so pathetic.”
“What an idiot,” Burchett repeated before telling McCarthy in a final comment: “You need security, Kevin.”
Kevin McCarthy was accused Tuesday of elbowing Rep. Tim Burchett, who voted to strip him of the gavel last month.
“He’s a thug with $17 million and a security detail,” Burchett told CNN afterward. “I’m probably not going to file an ethics complaint with you. He is not worth it.”
McCarthy later strenuously denied having maliciously shoved or “kidney-kicked” the Tennessee representative.
“I guess our shoulders collide because Burchett [ran] It’s up to me later; I didn’t know what she was talking about,” McCarthy told reporters. “I didn’t run and hit the guy, I didn’t punch him in the kidney.”
“If I hit someone, they’d know I hit them,” McCarthy added.
When asked about Burchett’s claim that he was in pain, the former speaker exclaimed, “Oh, come on.”
Burchett, seven other Republicans and 208 Democrats joined forces to declare the presidency vacant on Oct. 3, setting off a three-week fight for the gavel that was ultimately won by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.).
On Tuesday afternoon, far-right Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who led the anti-McCarthy riot, filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee demanding an investigation.
Rep. Burchett told McCarthy he “had no guts” after accusing him of elbowing him. Getty Images
“This is crazy. McCarthy resorts to shoving people in the hallways. What a weak and pathetic shell of a man,” Gaetz wrote in X.
Ironically, McCarthy alleged that Gaetz was motivated to oust him from office because McCarthy refused to intervene in an ethics investigation revolving around the Florida representative. Gaetz has denied it.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who also backed Gaetz’s effort to unseat McCarthy, criticized the former president for the alleged fight.
“Kevin, there’s no place for a mean girl in the halls of Congress…” Mace (R-SC) said on X.
McCarthy criticized Burchett, Gaetz and Mace in an interview that aired Sunday.
“They care a lot about the press, not the politics, so it seems like they just want the press and the personality,” he told CNN’s “Inside Politics.”
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) alleged in his recent book “Renegade” that McCarthy intentionally checked his shoulder at least twice while Kinzinger was in Congress.
When asked Tuesday about that claim, McCarthy said, “Oh, no, I don’t know anything about Kinzinger.”
Categories: Trending
Source: vtt.edu.vn