Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) said Thursday that conservatives “just fragged Kevin McCarthy” after the House majority leader dropped out of the race for speaker.
Dent, a moderate, spoke to MSNBC after McCarthy announced that he was ending his bid to replace Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) just minutes before House Republicans were set to pick a nominee for the job.
“Well it’s pretty obvious what happened,” Dent said. “The same members who wanted to take down John Boehner, I always said would try to frag the next guy. Well, they just fragged Kevin McCarthy.”
Dent said he thought McCarthy’s concern was that he didn’t want to be “embarrassed” or “humiliated” if he didn’t get enough votes.
“The challenge for our conference is quite simple. That we need to assemble bipartisan coalitions to pass any important legislation around here,” Dent continued. “Whoever’s going to be the next speaker should not appease this group of rejectionists who have no interest in governing.”
Watch Dent’s comments:
