House speaker contender Jason Chaffetz takes swipe at Kevin McCarthy
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Version 0 of 1. The Republican congressman and newly announced candidate for speaker of the House of Representatives Jason Chaffetz on Monday struck out against his opponent Kevin McCarthy in an interview on MSNBC. Speaking to Joe Scarborough, Chaffetz described the majority leader as “a good man” but said voters want “a fresh start, a fresh face” in the speaker’s office. “I don’t think [the voters] want to automatically promote the existing leadership team,” he said. McCarthy, from California, was thought to have the job all but locked up. But he could face problems reaching the 218 votes required, because the so-called Freedom caucus – the rightwing of the congressional Republican party – may see in him a continuation of current speaker John Boehner’s reign of compromise with Democrats. His struggle was made harder when Chaffetz, who has represented Utah’s third district since 2009 and is the chair of the House committee on oversight and government reform, announced his bid for speaker over the weekend. House Republicans will vote by secret ballot on Thursday. “There is a lot of internal strife,” Chaffetz said. “There is a gulf, and a divide [within House Republicans], that needs to be brought together.” He added that he thought McCarthy was “shy of 218 [votes]”. “I’m trying to unify us, so instead of firing on each other we can fire on the Democrats,” he said. Chaffetz was in the eye of the news last week when he led his committee in interrogating Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards. After his announcement, he told Fox News Sunday he thought he could “bridge the divide” between the hard right and centrist segments of the house GOP. On Monday, Chaffetz described comments from McCarthy on Tuesday that implied the Benghazi committee was a politically motivated strategic move against Hillary Clinton as “a terrible mistake”. “But it was a mistake,” he added. “Kevin doesn’t normally do that. That’s not how he is, and he has apologised for it.” He said, however, that he was better than McCarthy at “going on-camera and going before the media”. “I want a speaker who speaks,” he said. |