When the leader of House progressives was asked Tuesday whether Democrats would vote to save the speakership of Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy, she unapologetically rejected the prospect out of hand.
“We are not voting in any way that would help save Speaker McCarthy,” responded Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington. “This is not a Democratic problem. This is a Republican problem.”
When another reporter probed further, asking whether Democrats simply didn’t trust McCarthy, Jayapal nodded along in agreement. “Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy,” she stated. “Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy, and why should we?”
Jayapal listed several of McCarthy’s broken promises, including his debt-limit deal with President Joe Biden earlier this year and, more recently, on Ukraine funding. But then she got to the heart of the matter.
“It’s also going back to Jan. 6,” Jayapal explained. After pausing for a moment to gather her thoughts, Jayapal continued, “We were here—it is still deeply emotional for us because it’s about our country, it’s about why we came to Congress.”
Jayapal harkened back to shortly after the Capitol attack, when McCarthy stood on the House floor and charged that then-President Donald Trump “bears responsibility” for the violent insurrection. But just several weeks later, on Jan. 28, 2021, McCarthy posed for a picture with Trump that was promptly released by Trump’s super PAC, alongside a statement saying the two had “agreed to work” together to retake control of the House majority.
“[McCarthy] has supported the insurrectionist president that enabled Jan. 6 to happen and tried to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” Jayapal noted, adding, “So there are a lot of reasons not to trust Kevin McCarthy.”
Besides Jaypal’s comments demonstrating the remarkable unity of House Democrats in letting Republicans “wallow in their pigsty of incompetence,” as she put it, they also underscored his original sin of betraying the country in the aftermath of Trump’s Jan. 6 coup attempt.
Jan. 6 has become both the ultimate dividing line among both politicians and voters, and a proxy for the defining issue of this political era: One either sympathizes with the insurrectionists or does not. Anti-democracy vs. pro-democracy.
In a post-ouster press conference, the gavel-less McCarthy sought to turn his betrayal of the country against Democrats. “Do I regret the Democrats playing games with Jan. 6? Yes,” he told reporters, saying Democrats “played so many politics.”
McCarthy also sought to blame former Speaker Nancy Pelosi for his expulsion. It’s basically the worst speaker of the House (a man) blaming the best speaker of the House (a woman) for his failure.
More to the point, however, Democrats had myriad reasons for not saving McCarthy. But his original sin was turning his back on the republic and his oath of office after the violent attack that nearly destroyed the bedrock of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of power.
Congressional Democrats have not forgotten Republicans’ dereliction of duty regarding Jan. 6, and neither will pro-democracy voters, who still account for a majority of the U.S. electorate.
Sign the petition: Expel members of Congress who supported Jan. 6.
