McCarthy Ridiculed For Video Reading Dr. Seuss While Senate Debated Pandemic Relief Bill

Kevin McCarthy's Twitter Page.
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

As the Senate ramped up its vote-a-rama and battled — to eventually pass — President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic aid plan, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Friday released a five-minute video of himself reading a Dr. Seuss book in an apparent attempt at outrage over cancel culture.

“I still like Dr. Seuss, so I decided to read Green Eggs and Ham,” McCarthy wrote in a Twitter post featuring the video.

But Dr. Seuss wasn’t “cancelled.”

The video came after Dr. Seuss Enterprises said in a statement Tuesday that it had decided last year to end publication and licensing of six books by Theodor Seuss Geisel that contained racist imagery in an effort to advances its “mission of supporting all children and families with messages of hope, inspiration, inclusion, and friendship.”

“These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” the company added, noting that the move to discontinue six of the books followed review with a panel of experts.

GOP lawmakers and conservative media networks have since directed their ire at Democrats, suggesting that their congressional counterparts were to blame for the private company’s move to halt publication of some of its books. Earlier in the week Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) falsely suggested Biden had banned the books.

The Republican outrage seems to stem from its broader effort to attribute “cancel culture” to Democrats, even as prominent members of the Republican Party have sought to “cancel” their own colleagues for voicing opposition to former President Donald Trump in the wake of the role the ex-president played in fomenting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. 

McCarthy’s reading of “Green Eggs and Ham”  was ridiculed in tweets slamming the House’s top Republican leader not only for his misguided attention as his colleagues in Congress battled to pass a relief bill to lend support to millions of financially-strapped American families and businesses, but also for his selection of a book that was not among the pulled titles.

Latest News
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: