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'Pelosi Republicans': McCarthy and Cheney trade barbs ahead of Jan. 6 committee hearing

A day before the U.S. House’s new select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection holds its first public hearing, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. — who agreed to sit on the panel after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of McCarthy’s picks — “Pelosi Republicans.”

Speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden at a White House ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, McCarthy was asked whether he planned to punish Cheney and Kinzinger for agreeing to participate in the select probe.

“We’ll see,” McCarthy said before giving them the disparaging label.

As Cheney entered an afternoon prep session for Tuesday’s hearing, she was asked about McCarthy’s comments.

“I think that’s pretty childish,” Cheney said.

“We’ve got very serious business here,” she said. “And we’ve got important work to do.”

GOP Reps. Kevin McCarthy, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. (Photos: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Last week Pelosi barred two of McCarthy’s five selections — Reps. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio — from the 13-member committee she set up to investigate the deadly Capitol attack.

Banks and Jordan are staunch allies of former President Donald Trump and voted to reject the election results in the hours after the siege.

Pelosi insisted that her opposition to having them on the panel had nothing to do with their vote but that they had “made statements and taken actions” that would threaten the integrity of the committee.

McCarthy, in turn, withdrew all five of his picks, accusing Pelosi of playing partisan politics and vowing that he would launch his own investigation.

Pelosi had already named Cheney to the panel. She added Kinzinger on Sunday.

The select committee will hold its first public hearing Tuesday, with testimony from police officers who were brutally beaten during the attack.

“We need to hear how they felt,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the select committee’s chairman, said earlier this month. “We need to hear what people who broke into the Capitol said to them.”

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