After Republican senators failed to pass a skinny Obamacare repeal bill early Friday morning, one GOP congressman is calling on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to step down.
During an interview with CNN on Friday, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) said the news that three Republicans — Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lisa Murkowski (R- AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) — tanked a bill that only needed a simple majority to pass was an “abject failure of the United States Senate” and questioned whether top leadership needed a shakeup.
“It was a failure from the newest member Luther Strange (R-AL) at the bottom to the very top with Mitch McConnell as majority leader,” he said, urging senators to stay in D.C. until “the job gets done.”
“Now is not the time to leave the American people in a lurch. Now is not the time to leave American health care at risk,” he said. “I hope they won’t quit. If they’re going to quit, by golly, maybe they ought to start at the top with Mitch McConnell leaving his position and letting somebody new, somebody bold, somebody conservative take the reins so they can come up with a plan that can get through the United States Senate.”
He clarified his statements, saying it was not “necessarily anything bad about Mitch McConnell himself personally,” but said he has a job to do.
“And if he can’t do it, as ‘The Apprentice’ would say, ‘you’re fired.’ Get somebody who can,” he said.
McCain, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer and returned to the Senate this week to vote on a motion to proceed on Obamacare repeal, delivered the decisive blow after Collins and Murkowski had already cast votes against the plan. He issued a statement afterward saying he couldn’t just pass the Senate’s plan without some type of replacement legislation.
Speaking after McCain cast his “no” vote, McConnell called the bill’s failure a “clearly disappointing moment” for the GOP.
GOP Rep. Mo Brooks: Mitch McConnell has "got to go" https://t.co/tlo8ptvLkg https://t.co/JcuGLCsvMH
— CNN (@CNN) July 28, 2017
