Politics

New Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy Blames Harry Reid For DC Dysfunction

Brendan Bordelon Contributor
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New Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy declined to blast President Obama for a lack of progress in Washington on Sunday, instead blaming his Democratic Senate counterpart Harry Reid for not even moving important bills to the president’s desk.

“What is your attitude about doing business with Barack Obama for the rest of his presidency,” Fox News host Chris Wallace asked McCarthy.

“I believe you can work with anybody,” he replied. “The challenge has been Harry Reid. Let me give you an example. There’s more than 240 bills that have passed the House that haven’t even been brought up inside the Senate.”

“If you want to know the problem and the frustration with Washington: the Senate,” McCarthy asserted. “The Senate has not moved anything. They never send something to the president’s desk, so how do you even negotiate with the president when he doesn’t have the bill on his desk?”

The majority leader noted that, unlike in the House, Reid allows his opponents almost no chance to add amendments to bills during legislative discussions — something hardly conducive to compromise.

“So what is the hold-up here? Harry Reid and the Senate,” McCarthy declared. “If that fundamentally changes in November, I think it’ll be a new day in America and a new direction.”

The new majority leader also fielded a “House of Cards” question — perhaps inevitable, given that he allowed Kevin Spacey to shadow him for days as research for his own role as House whip Frank Underwood in the dark political drama.

“I have to ask you though, in the Frank Underwood role, did you ever kill a political opponent?” Wallace asked jokingly.

“No, but I jokingly say that if I ever did it’d be easier to whip,” McCarthy cracked. “And then seven members texted me, and asked me if they’d be the ones I would to kill.”

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