One of the U.S. representatives who helped oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as speaker said he was shoved by the member on Nov. 14.
“I got elbowed in the back ... it was a clean shot to the kidneys,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Mr. Burchett was in the middle of an interview with a reporter when he was passed by Mr. McCarthy.
“I turned back, and there was Kevin,” Mr. Burchett said.
Claudia Grisales, the NPR reporter who was interviewing the Tennessee congressman, said she saw what happened.
“McCarthy shoved Burchett,” she wrote on X.
The force caused Mr. Burchett to move towards Ms. Grisales.
“Why'd you elbow me in the back, Kevin?” Mr. Burchett was quoted as saying. “Hey Kevin, you got any guts?”
Mr. McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment.
“I guess our shoulders hit,” Mr. McCarthy later told reporters. “I did not run and hit the guy, I did not kidney punch him.”
“You didn’t shove him?” one reporter asked.
“No,” Mr. McCarthy said.
Mr. McCarthy denied intentionally doing anything.
“If I hit somebody, they would know it. If I kidney punched someone, they would be on the ground,” he said.
When told that Mr. Burchett had said he was in pain, Mr. McCarthy smiled. “Come on now,” he said.
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said that Mr. McCarthy shoved him twice in the past.
“The first time I was so surprised that I thought it was a joke at first, until I remembered that it had been almost a year since we had spoken, and our relationship was, how shall I say, strained. A similar event happened a few months later, again, walking past me in an isle on the floor,” Mr. Kinzinger wrote on his Substack.
The former speaker also denied those allegations.
“He’s a bully,” Mr. Burchett told reporters. “He’s the type of guy that when you’re a kid would throw a rock over the fence and run home and hide behind his mama’s skirt.”
“That hallway was, there’s plenty of room you can walk four side by side, he chose to do what he did,” Mr. Burchett also said. “It‘ll end right here, I’m sure it’ll just be a little little asterisk on his storied career.”
Mr. Burchett said he backed off because confronting his colleague over what took place was not accomplishing anything. He also said he would likely not file an ethics complaint because he believes Mr. McCarthy will leave Congress this year or next.
The blow “is symptomatic of the problems that he’s had in his short tenure as speaker,” Mr. Burchett said.
Mr. Burchett told NPR that the situation with Mr. McCarthy was the first time they'd spoken since Mr. Burchett voted to remove the California congressman as speaker.
Ethics Complaint
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who led the effort to oust Mr. McCarthy as speaker, filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee later Tuesday.Mr. Gaetz described what happened as an assault and called for a quick investigation by the panel.
“While Rep. Burchett is within his rights to decline to press charges against Rep. McCarthy, your committee does have a duty to investigate breaches of the binding code of official conduct,” he wrote to the leaders of the panel, Reps. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) and Susan Wild (D-Pa.).
The code states in part that members “shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.
“There is substantial evidence that Mr. McCarthy breached this duty,” Mr. Gaetz wrote.
Remaining in Office?
Mr. McCarthy’s fast removal as speaker sparked reports that he was considering leaving Congress even before his current term, which expires in early 2025, is over.Mr. McCarthy said in October that he was remaining in office.
“No, I’m not resigning. I’m staying, so don’t worry,” he told reporters in Washington.
“We’re going to keep the majority. I’m going to help the people I got here, and we’re going to expand it,” he also said at the time.
But he told CNN recently that he might, in fact, depart early.
“I don’t know,” he said, when asked if he was leaning toward staying in Congress or doing something else.
Mr. McCarthy represents California’s 20th Congressional District, which covers part of central California. He has been in office since 2013.
Mr. McCarthy easily won reelection in 2022, earning 67 percent of the vote.
