Simple Questions for Kevin McCarthy about Rep. Greene

Given that Rep. Greene just said that if she and Steve Bannon had been organizing the Jan. 6th protest at the Capitol, the crowd “would have been armed,” and therefore, “we would have won.”

Here is the simple question, what will McCarthy do about this?

Will he pretend she did not say anything and keep silent?

Will he take no action against her?

Will he censure Rep. Greene?

Will he give her back her Committee seats?

Or will McCarthy turn a blind eye to Rep. Greene’s latest outrage and attack on the American system of government, and accept her statement that what she said was “a joke” and “sarcasm”?

After the mid-terms, everyone knows the voters are not buying the “it was just a joke” defense.  But it appears the House GOP leadership is accepting it, buying the fig leaf Rep. Greene is selling.

The problem for McCarthy is that the election-victory-denying margin of GOP voters exists and likely believe that McCarthy’s continued silence and inaction against Rep. Greene really means he agrees with her and with what she said.  That’s one of the reasons these GOP voters turned out — so that they could vote against the House Republicans.

If McCarthy continues his policy of turning a blind eye to the words and actions of the same type of candidates voters so roundly rejected in the mid-term elections, there will be negative political consequences to his silence, as the mid-terms showed.

Just like there were negative electoral consequences from McCarthy’s non-cooperation with the 1/6 Committee, which is now ready to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.

These are precisely the kind of reasons the House Republicans did not decisively win the mid-term elections.

What Kevin McCarthy does about what Rep. Greene said will tell everyone whether or not he will pivot to the new post-mid-term political realities about a larger GOP turnout than the Dems, but that his House candidates lost because of -1 Republican voters, who refused to vote for the Republican, or voted for the Democratic candidate over issues like this, and the election denial, and with the GOP House Leadership generally putting up with January 6th insanity.

McCarthy is helping the Democrats by doing nothing about what Rep. Greene said — they are sitting largely silent because they get the joke, that the joke is on McCarthy — the thirty-second ads are not hard to write for the next cycle tying him to her and what she said, especially after the House GOP goes scorched earth on the 1/6 Committee and their work.

My guess is the longer McCarthy stays silent or refuses to take action against Rep. Margorie Taylor Green — then the more difficult his leadership race will become (as if it has not been difficult enough already) — for the simple reason it shows he has not learned the central lesson of the mid-term elections and once again is courting political disaster for the GOP, by pandering to Rep. Greene and giving voters the impression his silence means he agrees with her.