McCarthy backs Stefanik to replace Cheney as GOP House chair [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• During an interview with Fox News Sunday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy said he supports Rep. Elise Stefanik to replace Rep. Liz Cheney as GOP Committee chair.
• McCarthy said that the GOP needed a “unified conference” that would go against President Joe Biden and his liberal agendas.
• Stefanik has the support of GOP leaders which include former President Donald Trump.

For the first time in public, GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA.) has officially endorsed Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to replace incumbent House Republican Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (WY.), saying that GOPs needed a united conference to go head-to-head with President Joe Biden’s political agenda.

On Sunday, Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures anchor Maria Bartiromo asked McCarthy if he “supports Elise Stefanik for that job.”

“Yes, I do,” the House Minority leader replied.

“We need a conference that’s united. That’s why we need a conference chair that is delivering that message day in and day out and uniting the nation to make sure that we are on the right footing going forward,” McCarthy told Bartiromo, referring to Cheney.

When asked whether they would gather enough votes to remove Cheney, the Republican leader said: “everyone in the leadership serves at the pleasure of the conference.”

“As you know, there’s a lot at stake. Democrats are destroying this nation. We have watched the greatest expansion of government and this socialist liberal agenda. We watched them destroy our borders, where hundreds of thousands are coming across, not being tested for COVID. We’re catching people on the terrorist watch list,” he said.

“To defeat Nancy Pelosi and the socialist agenda, we need to be united. And that starts with leadership,” McCarthy continued.

In another interview on Fox News Sunday, Republican Study Committee Chair Rep. Jim Banks (IN.) backed McCarthy’s statements against Cheney.

“Republicans are almost completely unified in a single mission to oppose the radical, dangerous Biden agenda and win back the majority in the midterm election. And any other focus other than that is a distraction from stopping the Biden agenda from what it — what it’s already done in three months,” he told host Chris Wallace.

“That’s our focus as a House Republican conference. And any leader who’s not focused on that … needs to be replaced,” he added.

Banks noted, however, that the upcoming vote would not remove Cheney from her leadership post and not from the Republican party per se.

This coming Wednesday, the GOP scheduled a vote to replace Cheney. The Wyoming congresswoman has been in hot water with her party mates following her vote last January to impeach former President Donald Trump in connection with the January 6 Capitol siege, condemning Trump’s statements that there was massive election fraud during last November elections.

Trump has approved of Stefanik, who was part of the GOP team that defended him during his impeachment hearing last February.

Source: New York Post