THE NEW ABNORMAL

Not a Single Republican Fears the Wrath of Kevin McCarthy

The House GOP leader wants to frighten Republicans into staying off Pelosi’s Jan. 6 committee. The problem? He frightens no one, Jonathan Allen says on The New Abnormal.

So House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says he’ll strip committee assignments from any Republican who deigns to serve on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 select commission. The New Abnormal co-host Molly Jong-Fast wants to know: Can he actually do that?

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Not by himself, says NBC News reporter Jonathan Allen. “In order for Kevin McCarthy to make good on this threat, Nancy Pelosi would have to allow a House floor vote on whether to take Liz Cheney off of her committees, as punishment for joining Pelosi’s select committee on Jan. 6.”

That’s highly unlikely, Allen says. So this was just a scare tactic from McCarthy to get his caucus to stay off the committee—and a failed one at that. It turns out exactly no one fears him.

“I don’t think there’s a single Republican who is afraid of the awesome wrath of Kevin McCarthy,” Allen, author of Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency, says. “I think what they’re afraid of is that Donald Trump will pick them out of the crowd and say that they’re the person that Republican voters should turn against.”

Also on the show, comedian Andy Levy joins Molly and co-host Jesse Cannon to talk about Meghan McCain’s exit from The View—“a victory for passive-aggressive hairstylists”—and where she’ll go next.

Levy wonders exactly who McCain’s constituency is: How many “crazy Republicans are there who are not pro-Trump”? And Molly has some advice for the political scion about constantly name-dropping your famous relatives.

“I have to say, as someone who has really suckled from the teat of nepotism myself, and not, unfortunately, not as successfully as Meghan McCain because I’m not on television, I have to say that you don’t have to always tell people—because that’s why you’re there,” she quips. “You know what I mean?”

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Finally on the episode, lawyer Daniel Goldman, who served as general counsel for former President Trump’s impeachment trial, weighs in on the new charges for Trump Organization CFO Allen Weiselberg and what the case means for Trump and the rule of law.

“I just think that we need to be careful about viewing the Manhattan DA’s investigation as the effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for all of the wrongs that he has done,” he tells Molly.

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Martha MercerEditor

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