House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, the second-highest ranking House Republican, threw his support behind Rep. Elise Stefanik as the successor for Rep. Liz Cheney.
Scalise joins a growing group of Republicans looking to remove Cheney from the party’s conference chair position amid her feud with former President Donald Trump.
“House Republicans need to be solely focused on taking back the House in 2022 and fighting against Speaker Pelosi and President Biden’s radical socialist agenda, and Elise Stefanik is strongly committed to doing that, which is why Whip Scalise has pledged to support her for Conference Chair,” Lauren Fine, Scalise’s spokeswoman, told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.
Jeremy Adler, a Cheney spokesman, told the Washington Examiner, “Liz will have more to say in the coming days. This is about much more than a House leadership fight,” in response to Scalise’s support for Stefanik.
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was caught bashing Cheney on Tuesday morning during a hot mic moment prior to his interview on Fox News.
“I think she’s got real problems,” McCarthy told Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy off-air. “I’ve had it with … I’ve had it with her. You know, I’ve lost confidence. … Well, someone just has to bring a motion, but I assume that will probably take place.”
Members of the California Republican’s caucus are “concerned” about her ability to “carry out the message,” he said during the interview.
Cheney, one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump a second time for his role in the Capitol riot, has said in recent interviews that Trump isn’t the leader of the party, shouldn’t run for president in 2024, and that the party should not obfuscate what happened at the Capitol riot.
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“This is about whether the Republican Party is going to perpetuate lies about the 2020 election and attempt to whitewash what happened on Jan. 6. Liz will not do that,” Adler told the Washington Examiner a day earlier in response to McCarthy’s interview, “That is the issue.”
Trump has maintained he is the rightful winner of the election, a notion that culminated in the riot, amid his claims of widespread voter fraud.
The vote on whether to remove Cheney could occur as early as May 12, a GOP source previously told the Washington Examiner. She survived a similar vote Feb. 3.
