Greene: Any McCarthy challenge would be 'bad strategy'
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) argued against any challenge to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as House minority leader, worrying that it could have unintended negative consequences in a slim majority.
"I actually think that’s a bad strategy when we’re looking at having a very razor-thin majority, with potentially 219 — we’re talking about one vote," Greene said on former Trump adviser Stephen Bannon’s "War Room" podcast Monday morning.
Greene’s comments came amid reports that Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a former chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is weighing a protest run against McCarthy.
Biggs told reporters Monday afternoon that no one currently has 218 votes to be Speaker. His spokesman told The Hill there will be an alternative challenger to McCarthy but did not confirm it would be Biggs.
A handful of moderate House Republicans could join Democrats to support a compromise Speaker candidate such as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Greene warned Monday.
"It's very, very risky right now to produce a leadership challenge, especially for Speaker of the House, when they are going to open the door and allow Liz Cheney, possibly, to become Speaker," Greene said on the podcast.
Cheney will not return to Congress next year, but House rules allow for a nonmember to be elected Speaker. Such a scenario, though, is not considered serious, and she is not campaigning for the post.
Greene last year doubted McCarthy would have the votes to be Speaker but has since grown close with the GOP leader. She was included at a House GOP platform event in Pennsylvania in September, and she is hoping to be placed on the House Oversight and Reform Committee after McCarthy vowed to restore her membership in committees as Speaker.
“I think that to be the best Speaker of the House and to please the base, he’s going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway,” Greene said in a New York Times magazine profile published last month.
House Republicans are scheduled to elect conference leaders on Tuesday, which includes nominating a Speaker candidate. The nominee needs a majority of House Republicans in a secret ballot to get the nomination and then a majority — at least 218 votes in a fully sworn-in chamber — on the House floor to win the Speakership on the first day of the new Congress in January.
Conservative members of the House, including multiple members of the House Freedom Caucus, have withheld support for McCarthy over his resistance to rules change demands from the caucus that would chip away at leadership’s power.
Biggs told reporters last week that McCarthy’s reluctance to bring up impeachment articles — he has said multiple times that he would not pursue a “political” impeachment — made him question whether McCarthy should be Speaker.
The Arizona congressman has introduced impeachment articles against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“I think that his statement recently that we shouldn't impeach Secretary Mayorkas indicates maybe we're not gonna be as aggressive going forward as we should be,” Biggs told reporters last week.