‘We Need Leadership’: House Republican Shares ‘Doubts’ on Speaker McCarthy on CNN Before Praising Nancy Pelosi

Republican Rep. Tim Burchett praised former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seconds after admitting he doubts his fellow Republican and current Speaker Kevin McCarthy on CNN Thursday night.

Burchett has served in Congress for four years, representing his home state of Tennessee, and was pressed by Kaitlan Collins on whether he believes McCarthy will emerge from ongoing infighting within the House GOP caucus with his job intact.

Burchett revealed that he did not know the answer before explaining some of the budget challenges Congress currently faces. Collins doubled down and flatly asked if Burchett still supported Speaker McCarthy, to which he notably demurred.

“I have my questions. I have my doubts right now because I’m saying we need leadership, ma’am,” Burchett replied. “We don’t need someone just to say we got 218 votes or whatever that jumps on the train after it leaves the station.”

“We need some people. Speaker Pelosi, for instance, I would give you a, you know, I don’t agree with her ever hardly on anything. But she was pretty successful in her… and the way she did it was she put an issue out amongst our caucus. She met with them. She figured out what they wanted, and then they put it on the floor, and they passed it, and they rallied around it. A lot of work goes into that, but we’re not seeing that. I have not seen that work right now.”

Collins: One focus of all of this and we heard how frustrated Speaker McCarthy was earlier, saying that those hardliners want to burn the house down as he framed it. Do you believe he emerges from this with his job intact?

Burchett: I don’t know. But I think that’s a poor choice of words. We don’t want to burn the house down. We just want us to be fiscally sound. That’s what we ran for. That’s why I believe we received a very slim majority, because we didn’t push that out to the American public. Just how? Just the billions and billions of dollars that we’re wasting daily. We sent 140, almost $140 billion to Ukraine unchecked, and then the poor people. And now we can’t even get anything. And now the people in Pennsylvania, after the chemical spill, they’re still waiting. And I just think our priorities out of whack. And now I understand if we shut down the Ukraine, said …

Collins: Do you still support the speaker?

Burchett: I have my questions. I have my doubts right now because I’m saying we need leadership, ma’am. We don’t need someone just to say we got 218 votes or whatever that jumps on the train after it leaves the station. We need some people. Speaker Pelosi, for instance, I would give you a you know, I don’t agree with her ever hardly on anything. But she she was pretty successful in her. And the way she did it was she put an issue out amongst our caucus. She met with them. She got a she figured out what they wanted and then they put it on the floor and they passed it and they rallied around it. A lot of work goes into that, but we’re not seeing that. I have not seen that work right now. And it’s very disappointing to me because…

Collins: It’s from a Republican for now, praise for Speaker Pelosi.

Burchett: She’s a friend of mine. I mean, she has a granddaughter named Isabella, and I have a daughter named Isabelle. And my daughter got hurt real bad last year on a horse, which she actually won world championship in her division. And Speaker Pelosi is always asking me about her.
Collins: So, yeah, love to hear that. And we hope that your daughter is recovering. Well. Congressman, you got a lot going on. Thank you, Tim Burchett, for joining us tonight.

Burchett: Thank you so much for having me on, ma’am. It’s been a pleasure, as always.

Watch above via CNN (H/T Acyn)