House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Thursday mocked the likely incoming Democratic House leadership team as the “old, old past.”
“We’re talking about the future. The Democrats are going to elect the past,” McCarthy said on Fox News.
“Think about that,” he said. “Nancy Pelosi is speaker, Steny Hoyer is now running as the majority … leader, and Clyburn will become their whip?”
Pelosi, the likely next speaker of the House from California, is 78. Hoyer, now the minority whip from Maryland is 79, and James Clyburn, D-S.C., is 78.
“That is the past. I mean, that’s the old, old past,” McCarthy said. “They’ve all been in Congress more than 25, 30 years.”
Democrats are expecting to face something of a leadership challenge from the new crop of much younger Democrats, some of whom have said they won’t support Pelosi as their leader.
McCarthy, who is hoping to be the House minority leader in the new Congress, is 53, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is 48.
[Opinion: Why Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump will want to work with each other (a bit)]
