A Republican majority could help lead to limits on President Joe Biden’s spending, but as the likely speaker, Kevin McCarthy’s going to “have a very difficult time,” Washington Examiner Editor-in-Chief Hugo Gurdon said.
Just as Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) found in the Senate, it’s difficult to run a narrow majority, Gurdon said on Fox Business’s Mornings with Maria.
“There already are a lot of people raising their voices in the House and wanting to try and put handcuffs on Kevin McCarthy,” Gurdon said.
“It would be a disaster for the Republicans if they allowed the next two years to become a sort of slugfest between them,” he added.
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McCarthy, should he garner enough votes to take the speaker’s gavel in the new Congress, needs to put forward policies on energy and inflation and convince voters why Republicans should be in the majority, Gurdon argued.
He shared some advice with McCarthy and other Republican lawmakers as they take the majority, including setting an agenda for “responsible government” and presenting themselves as an alternative to the Democrats’ extremes from the last two years under Biden.
“That’s what this last election showed, that the candidates who were fighting the Republicans and who were on the Trump train were the ones who got beaten,” Gurdon told Bartiromo.
“The ones who did really well were the governors like [Ron] DeSantis and [Mike] DeWine and others who showed they were governing in the interest of the people,” he added.
Drawing from DeSantis’s victory speech in which the Florida governor said he had supported law and order and resisted “woke culture,” Gurdon said other Republicans must follow suit.
“They need to show that they are an alternative to the woke agenda,” he said, adding that “they need to show that they support parental rights and education, that they do not want to … go along with the running down of America, which the Left is trying to do.”
Gurdon also discussed the Senate leadership race between Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) with the hosts.
While McConnell was ultimately able to keep his position, Scott announcing a bid for it likely deepened a growing chasm between the two, he said.
Scott’s challenge was unexpected, especially after the proposed “red wave” failed to materialize following the midterm elections, Gurdon said.
“It was actually something of a surprise … because of course, Rick Scott was the man responsible primarily for running the Republican senatorial campaign, which was not a success,” Gurdon said.
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“And one has to look to the consequences and the ramifications and the reasons for that,” he added.
The Florida Republican is a known supporter of Trump, who announced his candidacy for 2024 on Tuesday evening.
Gurdon said it likely pleased Trump to see one of his supporters needling McConnell but added that he doesn’t think it “sets things up well for the future.”
“Mitch McConnell came back in the election and poured an enormous amount of money into trying to help the somewhat poor candidates win,” he said.
“So, it was a bit of a surprising challenge, but you can see the reasons for it,” he added.
