Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) delivers remarks during a hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on October 13, 2022 in Washington, DC.
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is seeking to become House Speaker next year.
He’s promised to remove Rep. Adam Schiff and two other Democrats from their committees if elected.
Schiff has called him a “very weak leader.”
Rep. Adam Schiff criticized House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for vowing to remove three Democrats from their committee assignments if elected speaker.
McCarthy has his sights set on removing Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, who are on the House Intelligence Committee, from their assignments, according to USA Today.
“I’ll keep that promise,” McCarthy said Sunday on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” after reporter Maria Bartiromo asked if he “will deliver” on removing Omar, Schiff, and Swalwell from committees.
Schiff responded to McCarthy’s potential undertaking on a Sunday episode of ABC’s “This Week.”
“Well, I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do. He’s a very weak leader of this conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator, and if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that’s what they’ll do,” Schiff said.
In order for McCarthy to become House Speaker next year, replacing Nancy Pelosi, he will need to win 218 votes in the House. It’s possible the effort may prove to be a challenge given Republicans’ narrow margin of victory this midterm season.
Some Republicans have criticized McCarthy — including Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who said that McCarthy has been “siding with the insurrectionists,” and Rep. Liz Cheney, who called McCarthy the “leader of the pro-Putin wing.” Neither Kinzinger nor Cheney will be in Congress next year.
Greene supports McCarthy’s efforts, calling it a “bad strategy” for Republicans to go against him. Under his leadership, he has said he will reinstate her on committee assignments despite her far-right ideologies.
Schiff, who is also on the committee investigating the January 6th insurrection, continued: “It’s going to be chaos with Republican leadership. And, sadly, the crazy caucus has grown among the Republicans.”
Representatives for McCarthy and Schiff did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.