Liz Cheney Says Kevin McCarthy Shouldn’t Be Speaker Because He’s Chickened Out ‘At Every Single Moment’ of Importance

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said that fellow Republican and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has no business being Speaker of the House if the GOP retakes the lower chamber.

Appearing at The Texas Tribune Festival on Saturday, Cheney was asked a straightforward question: “Should Kevin McCarthy be speaker?”

The answer was equally forthright.

“No,” Cheney replied.

The outgoing congresswoman, who lost this year’s Republican primary to challenger Harriet Hageman, elaborated:

I say that because the Speaker of the House is the second in line to the president – the presidency – after the vice president. And at every single moment when our time of testing came, and Kevin had to make a decision about what he was gonna do, he’s made the – politically easy for him, or the – politically expedient decision instead of what the country needed. And I think that somebody who’s gonna be that close to the presidency needs to be somebody who’s faithful to the Constitution.

Cheney has been critical of McCarthy over his reaction to former President Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. On that day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a vain attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Earlier that day, Trump lied to his supporters at a rally near the Capitol when he said the election had been stolen from him.

A week after the riot, McCarthy delivered harsh words for Trump on the House floor.

“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters,” McCarthy said at the time. “He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding. These facts require immediate action by President Trump.”

However, just two weeks later, McCarthy visited Trump – who at that point was a private citizen – at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, presumably to make nice with the de facto leader of the Republican Party. McCarthy no longer dares to criticize Trump in public.

Watch above via The Texas Tribune.