(Headline USA) Former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., plans to challenge House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for the speakership if Republicans win the House, according to CNN.
Biggs has been one of several top Republicans to come out against McCarthy in the wake of the midterm election’s disappointing results.
He argued McCarthy failed to put forward an agenda that the party could rally behind, and accused him of not taking seriously the priorities of the House Republican Caucus’s more conservative members.
“I think we need to have a real discussion about whether he should be the speaker or not,” Biggs told reporters last week.
“I think that his statement recently that we shouldn’t impeach [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary Mayorkas indicates that maybe we’re not going to be as aggressive going forward as we should be,” Biggs added. “That’s—those are things that I think we should have a very frank discussion internally about, where we’re going to be going forward.”
House Republicans are scheduled to hold their leadership elections on Tuesday, but many in the party have called for a delay since the midterm election’s results are not yet final.
“I think we don’t even know if we’re in the majority, so I think it’s responsible to just look and see where the cards fall right now, and we don’t know,” Rep.-elect George Santos, R-N.Y., said on Sunday.
Surprisingly, one of the party’s more far-right members, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, came out against a challenge to McCarthy, calling it a “bad strategy.”
“I actually think that’s a bad strategy when we’re looking at having a very razor-thin majority, with potentially 219—we’re talking about one vote,” she said on Monday. “It’s very, very risky right now to produce a leadership challenge, especially for Speaker of the House, when they are going to open the door and allow Liz Cheney, possibly, to become Speaker.”
