McCarthy Bemoans Liz Cheney’s Nonstop Grumbling About Trump: When Leaders Don’t Work as a Team,’It Creates Difficulties’

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested Monday that he isn’t pleased with Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-WY) decision to keep sniping at former President Donald Trump.

“There’s a responsibility, if you’re gonna be in leadership,” McCarthy said in an interview with Politico. “Leaders eat last. And when leaders try to go out, and not work as one team, it creates difficulties.” He also said he had advised Cheney to stop making the comments, but when asked whether he believed she was following his advice, McCarthy replied, “You be the judge.”

Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, was critical of Trump throughout his term in office, and was one of 10 Republicans to vote in favor of impeaching him in January. A subsequent vote by Cheney’s colleagues to remove her from position in leadership failed 145-61, and she has continued to speak critically of Trump. She said in a Fox News interview this month that she wouldn’t support him for president in 2024 even if he became the Republican Party’s nominee, and at a House GOP conference in Orlando over the weekend, said the Justice Department should determine whether to prosecute Trump for the January 6 unrest that led a mob to break into the United States Capitol.

The approach McCarthy and Cheney have taken toward Trump — and each other — also raised eyebrows at a February news conference, when reporters asked the two whether Trump should speak at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. McCarthy flatly said, “Yes, he should,” before Cheney interjected to say, “I don’t believe that he should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country.”

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