Except for what I read, hear and see, I know little about Kevin McCarthy.
However, what I read, hear and see about the Republican Speaker-of-the-House-wannabe is not pretty.
Since this is The Moderate Voice, it is only fair to look at what his friends are saying about him.
It so happens that a (former Republican) friend of McCarthy just penned a piece about the at-all-costs-at-any-cost-Speaker-wannabe.
At his “The Warning” Newsletter, Steve Schmidt titles his latest piece “Kevin McCarthy’s betrayal of the United States of America” and it only gets better/worse (depending on the reader’s perspective) henceforth.
After making it clear that McCarthy was his friend, Steve Schmidt – who worked on several Republican campaigns, including on John McCain’s presidential campaign — doesn’t hold back.
“[Kevin McCarthy] betrayed the United States of America and his duty and obligations to the Constitutional Oath that he took,” Schmidt writes.
Referring to McCarthy’s conduct during the Trump era, Schmidt calls McCarthy “cynical, dishonest, delusional and toxically transactional — sometimes all at once.”
On the January 6 insurrection, Schmidt condemns McCarthy for helping “light the fire,” obstructing the subsequent investigation, slandering the Capitol Police officers who risked their lives protecting him and slams McCarthy for personally travelling to Mar-a-Lago and singularly giving Trump “immunity from his seditious conduct and criminal behavior by appeasing it, rewarding it and encouraging it.”
But Schmidt saves the best/worse for the end.
Paraphrasing or encapsulating the conclusion would not do Schmidt’s piece justice, so – hopefully without any copyright infractions – here it is in all its glory:
Kevin McCarthy is utterly unfit for national political leadership. He is deeply dishonest and a brazen liar who believes he is beyond scrutiny, accountability or rebuke. He is part of a conspiracy to permanently seize political power. He has made clear what his role will be in destabilizing the United States over the next two years in an attempt to create a crisis big enough to end democracy. He will revel in authoritarian executive orders and decrees around a crisis of his own making in early 2025.
For another take on McCarthy, please read “Kevin McCarthy is a buffoon” where the founder of The Lincoln Project minces no words.
In 2020, after spending nearly 30 years as a Republican, Schmidt announced he was registering as a member of the Democratic Party “[B]ecause in America today, it’s only the Democratic Party—which is the oldest political party in the world—that stands for the ideas and ideals of American liberty.”
Olivia Nuzzi, at New York Magazine, says this about Schmidt:
If Schmidt is a hero (and millions of people view him as one), it is because he has told the truth — as he did about Trump from inside the ranks of the Republican Establishment. He did that even though he was aware that he would face attacks on his character. And he did so even though people would ask why he had waited so long and would question his motivations. Telling the truth, whenever you tell it and however you tell it, is better than having not told it at all.
