Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger has criticized his colleague and opposition leader in the lower chamber, Kevin McCarthy, for «selling out» to the most extreme sector of the party, which is going to cause his leadership at the head of the House of Representatives not to last «very long».
«I don’t think it will last long,» Kinzinger said of McCarthy, whom he accused of having made too many deals with «bad people» in order to be elected House speaker next year.
«He’s not going to be a leader at all. I think he’s going to be completely hostage to the extreme wings of the Republican Party,» Kinzinger has predicted in a CNN interview. «It’s sad to see a man who has so much potential, sell out like that,» he has said.
Kinzinger, one of the two Republicans present in the parliamentary committee investigating the assault on the U.S. Capitol, criticized McCarthy for having «resurrected» former President Donald Trump when he went to visit him at his Mar-a-Lago mansion «a week or two after» that attack on January 6, 2021.
Finally, Kinzinger has advanced that McCarthy will likely have to «cut deals» with Democrats because of the narrow margin Republicans won in the midterm elections earlier this month.
«I wouldn’t be surprised if he has to make deals with Democrats, it’s something he has to keep in mind because he won’t get 218 votes for everything he wants to pass, including funding for the government,» Kinzinger said.
Last week, Republicans confirmed McCarthy as the party’s leader in the lower chamber, despite disappointing results in the legislature, and defeated the timid alternative put forward by Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs.
That was a secret ballot vote in which McCarthy only needed the support of a simple majority of the conference to stay in office. In January, however, he will need something more to become the new Speaker of the House – at least 218 votes.
