Speaker Kevin McCarthy picked a fight with a CNN reporter on Wednesday after saying just twelve days ago there could be no impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden without a vote in the full House of Representatives. On Tuesday the Republican from California announced he had directed top committee chairs to open an impeachment inquiry, despite having no evidence of President Biden receiving any benefits from his son’s businesses.
“You told Breitbart twelve days ago that you had the votes” to pass an impeachment inquiry, CNN’s Manu Raju told McCarthy. “What changed?”
“You know what’s interesting to me?” McCarthy responded. “You are a reporter for CNN, correct? I just laid out to you a lot of allegations based upon the American public.”
“Why did you change your words?” Raju asked.
“Okay. Well, let me let me answer your question because I’ve answered it every single day you could answer me every single day, Nancy Pelosi changed the precedent of this House. This doesn’t preclude – Nancy Pelosi changed the precedent of this House on September 24. It was withheld and good enough for every single Democrat here. It was good enough for the judge. Why’d you want to have to be different today? What we’ve learned in the last couple of weeks, wouldn’t you want to know the answer to? Your whole job is reporting.”
McCarthy went on to say there is an “accusation that the President took a bribe.”
“You do know from your own reporting from your own station that they were selling a brand. You do you know from your own reporting from CNN that the President went to and did conference calls that the President went to lunches and dinners – just the dinners, and and Hunter got a new Porsche.”
“That’s my question to you. Why don’t you ask the other questions?”
After Raju again accused McCarthy of having changed his position, the Speaker insisted, “I never changed my position.”
“You know what’s interesting me?” McCarthy continued. “So you don’t care about any of the answers? You are very interested the whole process.”
In 2019 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi did announce an impeachment inquiry but weeks later held a formal vote, which McCarthy has not promised to do. Donald Trump’s own Dept. of Justice in 2019 ruled that an impeachment inquiry is invalid without a formal House vote.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday said, “at risk of losing his job, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy caved to the demands from the far right today” as she called his actions a “major about face.”
“So far,” Collins continued, “there hasn’t been any evidence that is taking Republicans anywhere. It’s been nine months since they’ve been in the majority. And House Republicans have still not delivered any proof of President Biden directly benefiting from his son’s business dealings. McCarthy launched the inquiry today unilaterally without having the full House vote on it. Now that’s a major about face from just 11 days ago, when he said, and I’m quoting the House Speaker, ‘Now, the American people deserve to be heard. That’s why if we move forward with an impeachment inquiry, it would occur through a vote on the floor of the people’s house, and not through a declaration by one person.'”
Watch Collins below and Raju above, or both at this link.