McCarthy Denials About Replacing Ryan Don’t Hold Up
By Stephen F. Hayes (weeklystandard.com) / May 22 2018
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has published two stories in recent days about efforts by House majority leader Kevin McCarthy to replace Paul Ryan as speaker of the House before the November elections. McCarthy and his team have denied the claims and personally attacked our reporters.
Our response: THE WEEKLY STANDARD stands by our reporting, without qualification.
First some facts, then a few observations.
Facts
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House, spoke at a WEEKLY STANDARD conference in Colorado this past weekend and responded to a question from Fox News anchor Bret Baier about the possibility that Ryan could step down, allowing McCarthy to become speaker this year.
Mulvaney replied: “I’ve talked with Kevin about this privately but not as much publicly. Wouldn’t it be great to force a Democrat running in a tight race to have to put up or shut up about voting for Nancy Pelosi eight weeks before an election? That’s a really, really good vote for us to force if we can figure out how to do it.”
At a press scrum Monday, McCarthy was asked about Mulvaney’s comments. He said: “No way did we ever have any conversation about Paul leaving.” He added: “Not on any planet.”
So, McCarthy is denying something Mulvaney admitted on the record. They’ve either spoken about forcing an early vote or they haven’t. One of them isn’t telling the truth.
Mulvaney’s office issued a statement from a spokeswoman Monday afternoon. It’s more notable for what it doesn’t say than for what it does: Mulvaney doesn’t deny saying what he said and he doesn’t deny the conversations that McCarthy claims never happened. There’s a simple reason for that: He said what he said and the conversations with McCarthy happened.
The statement reads: “Mick works on a regular basis with the Speaker and Majority Leader and his comments Sunday morning were purely hypothetical. He is supportive of the Speaker. He is also supportive of any ideas that unite Republicans and divide Democrats, which is what his comments at the conference referenced. He is not ‘working behind the scenes’ for an early Speaker’s race nor getting involved in any leadership races.”
McCarthy’s plotting has been an open secret on Capitol Hill. Together, TWS has spoken to nine sources either involved in those conversations or familiar with them. They are not new. Politico’s Rachael Bade reported Monday: “In mid-April McCarthy allies floated installing @GOPleader now & WH officials asked Ryan’s office if he can do this for 7 months effectively. But Ryan pushed back hard & after that most kept concerns 2 themselves.”
As Politico reported on April 16: “Allies of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the current favorite for the job, are upset that Ryan insists on staying through the elections. They think the delay can only hurt McCarthy’s chances and might mean a monthslong power struggle in the House Republican Conference in the thick of election season.”
The facts are these: We have a first-hand, on-the-record claim from a McCarthy ally that McCarthy discussed with him an early speaker vote. TWS has corroborating reports from several additional sources, some of whom also discussed the possibility with McCarthy. We have additional outside reporting that McCarthy allies pushed to have their man become speaker this spring.
Observations
McCarthy’s denials are, to be polite, curious. He told reporters: “Mulvaney and I are longtime friends. We go to dinner when we’re back here on the early nights…The only thing Mulvaney has ever talked about was, ‘Are you going to run for Speaker if we keep the majority?’ Nothing different than that whatsoever.”
This makes no sense. Why would a “longtime friend” of McCarthy ask him whether he would do something – running for speaker – he’s been doing very publicly? He wouldn’t.
In the same press scrum, McCarthy said something completely different. Speaking of Mulvaney, McCarthy said: “The only thing we talk about—not about a Speaker race, we talk about how divided the Democrats are. People don’t realize, you know, we were laughing one day, saying we’re divided, here we are passing all those big pieces of legislation.”
So one moment “the only thing” McCarthy and Mulvaney have discussed is the speaker’s race and the next their conversation was “not about a Speaker race” but only “about how divided the Democrats are.”
These are mistakes you don’t make when you’re telling the truth.
https://www.weeklystandard.com/stephen-f-hayes/mccarthy-denials-about-replacing-ryan-dont-hold-up
