Opinion

The job Kevin McCarthy sold his soul for might elude him

Now, the New York Times reports yet another damning recording of the Republican leader:

Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, feared in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack that several far-right members of Congress would incite violence against other lawmakers, identifying several by name as security risks in private conversations with party leaders.

Mr. McCarthy talked to other congressional Republicans about wanting to rein in multiple hard-liners who were deeply involved in Donald J. Trump’s efforts to contest the 2020 election and undermine the peaceful transfer of power.

He specifically called out radicals such as Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who McCarthy said was “putting people in jeopardy.” He also said Gaetz “doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.”

In doing so, McCarthy has done the worst thing imaginable for someone in the MAGA movement: incurred the wrath of the top dog in the GOP — and that’s not the defeated former president (who had forgiven him for his private comments and seemed pleased that McCarthy had knuckled under).

Nope, this time McCarthy has enraged Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. (Disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor.) You might recall Carlson forced Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to renounce his assertion that Jan. 6 was a “violent terrorist attack.” He might now effectively end McCarthy’s lifelong aspiration.

Carlson railed at McCarthy on Tuesday night, saying McCarthy was a “puppet” of the Democrats and sounded like “an MSNBC contributor,” the worst insult one can lob at a Trump sycophant. To make matters worse, Gaetz in a tweet condemned McCarthy and GOP whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was also caught on tape:

To recap, McCarthy knew Trump was responsible for the attempted coup and suggested (although not to Trump) that he resign. McCarthy for a time also seemed to understand some of his own members betrayed their country and posed a danger to other members. He now feels compelled to lie or deflect questions about these conversations for fear that he will lose the confidence of Republicans he considered a menace to the country — and whose support he craves to grab the speaker’s gavel.

McCarthy’s spinelessness is on full view, but worse for his career plans, he has insulted and excoriated the MAGA crowd that he has been trying to ingratiate himself with for years. In other words, he must grovel or lie his way out of trouble if he is to lead this party of unfit characters.

McCarthy might have managed to blow his chance at the speakership, as he did in 2015 when he unintentionally admitted that the purpose of the Benghazi hearings was to smear Hillary Clinton in advance of her presidential run. Aside from his gelatinous character, McCarthy’s biggest problem is that he has never been entirely successful in disguising that he doesn’t believe much of what he says. He has as much disdain for some of his fellow Republicans as, well, Democrats do. The Republicans he privately denigrates know exactly what he thinks of them.

Meanwhile, Trump finds himself potentially crosswise with his base, as he was on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Just as he scrambled to support Ukraine (whose president he previously tried to extort), Trump might need to assess if McCarthy is permanently damaged in the eyes of the MAGA base. If so, he’ll scamper after Carlson and cut McCarthy loose — thereby demonstrating that neither he nor McCarthy is the true leader of the party. That distinction goes to Carlson, who has out-Trumped Trump on just about every issue. Come to think of it, that might explain why Carlson is traveling to Iowa more than two years in advance of the 2024 election.