Pelosi not guaranteed to be speaker again, McCarthy says

FPI / November 16, 2020

There is no guarantee House Speaker Nancy Pelois will retain that position in upcoming leadership votes, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Saturday.

“We’ll have leadership races next week, and you’ll hear that she’ll win the leadership race,” McCarthy, California Republican, told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. “But that does not make her Speaker."

McCarthy continued: "You have to have 218 votes on the floor. Last Congress, 15 Democrats voted against her. Ten of those Democrats are coming back to Congress. If 10 Democrats vote against her, she will not be Speaker. We will end up somewhere about 210 or further for the number of Republicans. So you know what could happen? She could lose as Speaker.”

If Pelosi does win, the margins would make it difficult for her to maintain control given divisions within the Democratic caucus, McCarthy said.

"But if she wins as Speaker, you have AOC and the progressive socialists actually grow. They are fighting among themselves, tweeting at one another, pictures staring at one another, saying it’s a dumpster fire, screaming on their conference calls."

McCarthy concluded: "I believe at the end of the day, the Republicans will run the floor because it will be our ideas that are stronger — that the American public had rejected defunding the police, dismantling America. We believe we can rebuild and restore the American way.”

Senate Republican leaders said they hope House Democrats will moderate their agenda after Republicans ousted 10 of their incumbents in the election.

“Hopefully Democrats will decide that they want to work with us now that it's been made clear that what they were trying to put forward is not what the American people want to see happen here,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune, South Dakota Republican, said.

Free Press International