House Republicans Beg McCarthy To Punish Republicans On January 6th Committee

Members of the House Freedom Caucus - a group of extreme Republicans in the House of Representatives - are calling on Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to punish Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for accepting roles on the January 6th Select Committee. They would like to see McCarthy kick these members off of their other committees, but McCarthy can't do that without severe backlash. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Republicans on the house. Freedom caucus

Have been begging house minority leader,

Kevin McCarthy to somehow punish the Republicans that have agreed to serve on Nancy. Pelosi's January 6th, select committee. Now this is not just Nancy Pelosi's committee, right? We have to understand this is what happened because Republicans repeatedly voted down any attempt to create a truly bipartisan commission. And Kevin McCarthy of course screwed the pooch last week by putting on two individuals, Jim Jordan and Jim banks who voted to not certify certain states, 2020 election results. So this is McCarthy's own doing. And what Pelosi did is she put Liz Cheney and then over the weekend added Adam Kinzinger to anti-Trump Republicans,

To the committee, house freedom caucus,

Which is where some of the most ardent far, right people in the house of representatives go

There now, furious.

They want these two Republicans Cheney and Kinzinger kicked off their regular committees. If you want to take a position on Pelosi's committee, they say you should lose all of your other committee assignments. So far, Kevin McCarthy has been mom on whether or not he's actually going to kick these people off their committees, but he needs to understand one thing here. He is pretty much powerless to do anything of consequence to these individuals. Let's not forget let's he's already been punished for not pushing Donald Trump's big lie. She is no longer the number three Republican in the house of representatives. Nope. That responsibility went over to us to phonic, who also happens to be the chair of the house freedom caucus. So it's not surprising that her members would want her, you know, basically to have maybe have a little bit more power. If we kicked Cheney off committees and maybe replace them with her, they haven't suggested that. I'm just saying that's something they could easily be wanting. But again, McCarthy can't do squat. Here's why McCarthy could 100% strip these two individuals of all of their other committee assignments. Then Nancy Pelosi could literally come right behind him and reappoint them to those committees. And we could just be stuck in an endless cycle of McCarthy, kicking them off and Pelosi adding them back. Yeah, that's one of the benefits of being the speaker of the house.

So I don't

Think it's going to happen. I think what we're seeing right now is mostly a symbolic gesture by these Republicans on the house, freedom caucus. They understand Pelosi has all the power in this situation, but them throwing little tent, uh, temper tantrums like this, isn't a good look for the Republican party because again, the public understands what's going on. They're actually paying attention to this whole thing.

They know

That Republicans voted down bipartisan efforts. They know Kevin McCarthy tried to stack the deck by putting Jordan and banks on the committee. They know that he is the one who pulled all five members off the committee after Pelosi objected to the two. They know that he's

The bad guy here. They know

That he is trying to make this whole thing into a farce.

So if he

Were to take any action against these two individuals that is only going to endear them further to the public, along with the Democrats,

McCarthy's caught between a rock and a hard place. He knows that

He risks his leadership position by not going along with the craziest members of his parties, uh, parties, excuse me. And he knows that if he does, uh, go, uh, go with the craziest members, he could face an electoral backlash. When the Republicans are pretty much at this point, poised to retake the house of representatives

Damned if he does damned if he doesn't, but

Let's also not forget this as a monster of Kevin McCarthy's own design. So whatever happens to them, the good, the bad and the ugly. He did it to himself.