Rep. Tim Burchett claims he’s forgiven Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for allegedly shoving him on Tuesday—but the Tennessee Republican’s appearance on Newsmax the very next day suggests their beef is only getting more bizarre.
Burchett, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy as speaker of the House, accused McCarthy of delivering a “clean shot to the kidneys” when the pair passed one another in a hallway on Tuesday, an incident witnessed by National Public Radio reporter Claudia Grisales.
McCarthy denied shoving Burchett, a response that prompted Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) to tell CNN that “Kevin McCarthy and lying are like peanut butter and jelly.”
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Burchett, who called McCarthy “a bully with $17 million and a security detail” on Tuesday, said Wednesday that he’d moved on from the incident and that he prayed for McCarthy.
“I prayed for him this morning because I know he’s hurting,” Burchett said on CNN. “It’s just a sad commentary on his life. I’m sorry for him. I really am. I feel sorry for him.”
“I’m sure right after he did it, he regretted it,” Burchett added. “And I have moved on. I have no vengeance towards him.”
But the very same day, Burchett went on Newsmax and openly plotted against McCarthy with host Rob Finnerty, as both suggested Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has dirt against the lawmaker she’d like to use.
“He’ll be messing in a lot of people like mine and Nancy Mace’s campaigns I’m sure,” Burchett said.
“If he does that with Nancy Mace, she could come back at him with some stuff that he doesn’t want out there in the public I think, if you know what I’m saying,” Finnerty shot back.
“Yeah, she’s already told me, ‘I hope he does that with me,’ and she’ll take care of him,” Burchett claimed.
McCarthy told CNN on Nov. 9 that he doesn’t believe Mace ought to be re-elected next year, and his considerable funds could help make that happen.
Meanwhile, McCarthy’s chief critic Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has seized on the “shoving” incident to call for an ethics investigation into the House speaker he ultimately toppled.
“This Congress has seen a substantial increase in breaches of decorum unlike anything we have seen since the pre-Civil War era,” Gaetz wrote in a letter to Ethics Committee Chairman Rep. Michael Guest (R-MS).
The incident was just one of several that have marked a period of outright chaos among Capitol Hill Republicans in recent days.
Tuesday also saw a GOP congressman call a colleague a “Smurf” during a hearing in the house, and a Republican senator challenge a union boss to a physical fight during a hearing in the Senate.
