White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that it was easy to “poke fun at the chaos” that ensued after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) dropped out of the race for House speaker.
Regardless of who gets the post, Earnest said, he or she will have challenges uniting the Republican party.
McCarthy announced, moments before the party was to vote on who would replace House speaker John Boehner (R-OH), that he would no longer run for the position.
“Republicans have to make some decisions about how to lead their conference,” Earnest said. “And it certainly is easy to poke fun at the chaos, but the fact is the challenge that is facing the next Republican speaker of the House, regardless of who it is, is the same challenge that John Boehner faced, is the same challenge that Kevin McCarthy would have faced, and that is simply to unite a divided Republican caucus.”
