Nov 16, 2023
Kevin McCarthy Accused Of Hitting Tim Burchett With Elbow 'To The Kidneys'
- 10 minutes
Hell of a thing,
another fight in the US at the capitol.
All right, let's put it up full mass.
Before I get into it,
I just want you to see the guys.
So we have Kevin McCarthy in one corner,
all right?
Former speaker, GOP feckless leader,
in the other corner
[00:00:19]
we have a guy named Tim Burchett
at Tennessee Republican.
So Tim says that, well, that guy McCarthy
ended up taking, well, a cheap shot.
Former House speaker.
[00:00:39]
Is now saying he was
accused wrongly of elbowing
the representative out of Tennessee,
one of the eight
Republicans who voted to strip
him of the gavel last month.
[00:00:54]
So these guys already had bad blood.
So Burchett says to CNN, McCarthy,
the Republican from Calif,
hit him with a clean
shot to the kidneys as
the former speaker walked
[00:01:10]
past him following a House Republican
conference meeting.
A clean shot to the kidneys, okay?
NPR reporter Claudia Grisales,
who was talking with Burchett at the time,
[00:01:28]
tweeted that the impact almost knocked
the 59-year-old Tennesseean into her.
Put up the pictures again, McCarthy sir,
I didn't know you had it in you.
[00:01:45]
And so at this point there's
a corroborating witness to say,
yes, this happened and this is the result.
Why do you elbow me in the back Kevin?
Burchett yelled after the former speaker,
according to audio of the exchange.
[00:02:03]
Hey, Kevin, you got any guts?
Jerk, end quote.
Burchett then chased after
the 58-year-old McCarthy,
who denied he'd done anything untoward.
Quote, I didn't elbow you in the back,
McCarthy said,
[00:02:22]
according to Grisales,
you got no guts, you did so,
the reporter said right there,
what kind of chicken move is that?
Burchette said, before adding,
you're pathetic, man.
You're so pathetic, what a jerk.
[00:02:40]
Burchette repeated before telling
McCarthy in a parting shot.
You need security Kevin,
put those guys up again.
Those fellas, okay?
[00:02:57]
Burchette told CNN afterward,
after he's a bully with 17 million and
a security detail,
I'm probably not going to do
an ethics complaint on him.
He's not worth it, McCarthy later
denied maliciously shoving or
[00:03:17]
kidney punching the Tennessee rep.
Quote, I guess our shoulders
hit because Burchette ran
up to me after I didn't know
what he was talking about,
McCarthy told reporters,
I didn't run and hit the guy.
[00:03:36]
I did not kidney punch him.
If I would hit somebody,
they would know I hit them,
McCarthy added,
put up the pictures again,
tough guys, okay?
[00:03:53]
When pressed about Brucette's
claim that he was in pain,
the former speaker exclaimed, come on now.
Burchette, seven other Republicans and
208 Democrats joined forces
to declare the speakership
vacant October 3, we covered it.
[00:04:11]
Triggering a three week fight for
the gavel that was
ultimately won by
Representative Mike Johnson.
On Tuesday afternoon, far right,
Republican Matt Gaetz Florida.
[00:04:26]
Who led the mutiny against McCarthy,
filed a complaint to the House Committee
on Ethics demanding an investigation.
This is wild, McCarthy resorting
to pushing people in the halls.
What a weak, pathetic husk of a man,
[00:04:44]
Gaetz wrote on X.
Ironically, McCarthy alleged that
Gaetz was motivated to oust him from
the speakership because McCarthy refused
to intervene in an ethics investigation.
[00:05:00]
Revolving around the Florida rep.
Gaetz has denied this.
Representative Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Republican who also backed Gates
effort to dethrone McCarthy, ripped the
former speaker for alleged rough housing.
[00:05:16]
Quote, Kevin, there is no place for
a mean girl in the halls of Congress,
Mace said on X.
McCarthy, pant Burchette, Gates and
Mace in an interview that aired on Sunday.
[00:05:34]
So there is absolutely no place for
rough housing and
fighting in the hallways
of that sacred chamber.
You have to reserve that for
a Senate hearing, here it is.
[00:05:50]
>> Speaker 2: Here in the last time,
him and I kind of had a back and forth,
I appreciate your demeanor
today it's quite different.
But after you left here,
you got pretty excited about the keyboard.
In fact, you tweeted at me 12345 times and
[00:06:05]
let me read what the last one said.
Said, greedy CEO who pretends
like he's self-made.
Sir, I wish he was in the truck
with me when I was building
my plumbing company myself and my wife was
[00:06:22]
running the office because I sure remember
working pretty hard and long hours.
Pretends like he's self-made,
what a clown.
Fraud, always has been, always will be.
Quit the tough guy act in
these Senate hearings.
[00:06:38]
You know where to find me,
any place, anytime, cowboy.
Sir, this is a time,
this is a place you wanna run your mouth.
We can be two consenting adults,
we can finish it here.
>> Speaker 1: Okay, that's fine, perfect.
>> Speaker 2: You want to do it now?
>> Speaker 1: I'd love to do it right now.
[00:06:53]
>> Speaker 2: Well,
stand your butt up then.
>> Speaker 1: You stand your butt up.
>> Speaker 3: Hold up, stop it.
>> Speaker 1: Is that your solution?
>> Speaker 3: No, no, sit down, sit down.
>> Speaker 3: Look at you.
>> Speaker 3: No,
you're a United States senator, sit down.
>> Speaker 3: Okay.
>> Speaker 3: Sit down, please.
>> Speaker 2: All right.
>> Can I respond?
Mr. [INAUDIBLE].
>> Hold it.
[00:07:09]
If we can, no, I have the mic, I'm sorry.
This is what he said,
you'll have your time.
>> Okay.
>> Can I respond?
>> Speaker 3: No, you can't.
This is a hearing, God knows the American
people have enough contempt for Congress.
Let's not. [CROSSTALK].
>> Speaker 2: I don't like work.
[00:07:25]
>> Speaker 1: I don't like you,
cuz you described yourself.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the
Republican senator was so outraged and so
ready to fight that it took an 82-year-old
progressive named Bernie Sanders,
a US senator, to stop it.
[00:07:40]
All right, so this is becoming a theme.
Obviously, they are upset at
themselves because they are inadequate.
What you are looking at is
their collective frustration,
[00:07:55]
not simply with others,
but within themselves.
These are Republicans and
Republicans, not Republicans and
Democrat, they are imploding.
Here is the sad part.
That's just silly and immature, this is
the sad part, they are still competitive.
[00:08:15]
They are still competitive with this kind
of imploding inside of a political party.
With this level of dysfunction,
with the lack of ideas for
solutions, you would think that
anyone who actually brings
[00:08:33]
solution to the table would run away
in a poll, an election reputation.
That's not what's happening.
All right, Yasmin, thoughts?
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, I just never wanna
hear that women are too emotional to lead
[00:08:49]
ever again.
>> [LAUGH].
>> Speaker 4: This is ridiculous,
I was laughing so
hard during that whole segment.
I covered the Mark Wayne Mullen
story yesterday for Rebel HQ, and
it was ridiculous then,
it's ridiculous today.
And between that incident and this
incident between McCarthy and Burchette,
[00:09:05]
it's just too much.
We can't even feign decency anymore, and
the perpetrators of these offenses and
this type of behavior is
coming from white men.
They're supposed to be the pinnacle of
what the rest of us are hoping to achieve
as far as civility goes, right?
They even made a mean girl reference,
but these aren't girls,
[00:09:23]
these are grown men who
are doing these actions.
So whether or not McCarthy actually shoved
or elbowed Burchette, I don't know.
It sounds like he might have,
but Burchette clearly knew
what he was doing when
he very deliberately gave the reporters
the sound bite that they were looking for.
[00:09:39]
McCarthy's response was just as, know he's
not impressing anyone with his bravado,
like, you would have
known if I shoved you.
McCarthy has a serious image problem
right now that he's gonna have to somehow
overcome if he's hoping to continue
his career at a high political level.
[00:09:55]
At this point, I'm not sure that he can
overcome such incredible reputational
damage, but he's certainly not
helping himself at this point.
And Mullen is now fundraising off of
what happened during the hearing.
He has T shirts out, you can get one
through his Twitter, I guess, right?
[00:10:11]
>> Speaker 1: The irony is unreal,
so you have one guy who's a Republican
elected member of the Senate saying,
hey, yeah, I was going to beat
somebody up in the hearing.
And he gets celebrated by Sean Hannity and
other Republicans.
And then McCarthy actually seen
seems to be about that action, and
[00:10:29]
all of a sudden, the Republicans
chastise him for acting out of order.
Guys, make your mind up y'all gangsters or
not, which one?
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