‘He Needs Help’: Kinzinger Says Kevin McCarthy Shoulder-Checked Him in Congress – ‘Twice!’

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) “needs help” after the ex-speaker reportedly elbowed a colleague in the back this week.

Kinzinger also said McCarthy whacked him twice while the former was still in Congress.

On Tuesday, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) claimed McCarthy elbowed him in what was “a clean shot to the kidneys.” An NPR reporter Burchett was speaking with at the time backed up the lawmaker’s claim. Burchett chased after McCarthy and told him, “You got no guts.”

Burchett was one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy as speaker in October. Kinzinger meanwhile, has repeatedly criticized McCarthy over his appeasement of former President Donald Trump.

During Friday’s edition of The Lead, Jake Tapper asked Kinzinger about his own encounters with McCarthy, which the former lawmaker just so happened to recount in his recent book.

“Twice!” Kinzinger began. “I’m kind of standing in the back of the House, leaning over that gold railing just kind of watching what’s going on, talking to people that walked by. And I get – wham! – I get shoulder-checked. Never had that happened on the floor of the House. And I turn and Kevin McCarthy’s already passed me. And my initial reaction is that we’re friends and I’m like, wait, we haven’t been friends in a year. That was serious.”

Kinzinger said McCarthy shoulder-checked him again “like when you’re in fourth grade” about three weeks later.

“And it was just like, what a child!” he added. “And so the interesting thing is, what are the chances that I write about this in a book, it comes out, he does it to this guy from Tennessee, and then he’s saying like, ‘It was an accident.’ That’s never happened to me from anybody else.”

He added, “Honestly, I hope he gets help. I think he needs to because his identity was wrapped up in being a speaker.”

Watch above via CNN.