Raskin Rattles Off Republicans’ Brutal Comments Trashing Themselves In Committee Hearing: ‘We’re a Party That Can’t Govern’

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) came to Tuesday’s House Oversight Committee Meeting armed with receipts showing House Republicans lamenting the state of their conference as they remain unable to choose a speaker.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) had just finished grilling the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service over its supposed ineffectiveness. Raskin appeared to anticipate Republicans’ line of questioning, as they have been very critical of the IRS

“What we’ve got is one more hearing to beat up on the IRS as part of the program to deconstruct the administrative state, as Steve Bannon promised at the beginning of the Trump administration,” Raskin said. “One can only regard with amazement that any member of the Republican Party today would lecture the commissioner of the IRS about efficiency or organization or anything else. Look at what the Republicans are saying about the Republicans today on Capitol Hill as we live through all of the reverberations of the chaos caucus.”

As he spoke, aides held up placards with quotes from GOP lawmakers about the lack of a speaker. Republicans have nominated three candidates over the past two weeks, all of whom have dropped out because they lack the votes. The drama comes after the House voted to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the post three weeks ago.

Raskin then read several comments from GOP lawmakers:

“The world is burning around us. We’re fiddling. We don’t have a strategy.” That’s Representative Steve Womack, Republican from [Arkansas].

“We’re fractured,” says a member of this committee, Representative Anna Luna from Florida.

“It’s not a normal majority,” says Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma.

Here’s Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene talking about the Republicans. “This conference is absolutely broken.”

Here’s Kevin McCarthy, who used to be speaker before he was deposed by the Republicans. “This is embarrassing for the Republican Party. It’s embarrassing for the nation.”

Here’s Representative David Joyce from Ohio, who probably sums it up best. “We’re a party that can’t govern.”

Here’s Representative Troy Nehls from Texas. “We’re a broken conference.”

Representative Tom Emmer said if it were a family, “We’d be the most dysfunctional family on the face of the planet.”

Here’s Representative Austin Scott, who ran briefly for speaker in the speakership sweepstakes taking place right now. “It makes us look like a bunch of idiots.”

And Representative Mark Alford from Michigan, another Republican – “We are a ship that doesn’t have a rudder right now.”

“So, it would be great if we could actually get a speaker of the House and a functioning House of Representatives so we could deal with these issues.”

Watch above via C-SPAN.