U.S. House Representative Kevin McCarthy, from California's 23rd Congressional District, and one of the Republican Party's chief manufacturers of "own goals".

On this date in 2015, 2016, and 2017, that we published our first two “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiles of the U.S. House Representative from California’s 23rd Congressional District, Kevin McCarthy, who has served for it since 2007, and the man who was supposed to be the heir-apparent to become Speaker of the House after the resignation of John Boehner, until he botched his debut taking the spotlight by boasting about how he had done a great job as one of the Republicans who started the Benghazi hearings which had successfully driven down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers… which gave away the game the GOP were playing for three years with the topic. It also didn’t help that McCarthy is one of the WORST public speakers in all of Congress (highlights here, courtesy of Rachel Maddow), or that he was also rumored to be having an affair with his colleague, Rep. Renee Ellmers. Even prior to his catastrophic attempt at becoming House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy has a long, long history of gaffes within his legislative career, including co-sponsoring legislation in 2007 to stop the “War on Christmas” by passing a bill to recognize the importance of Christmas and Christianity, and signing onto a letter from the Family Research Council pledging that he agrees with them that gay candidates should be barred from public office, and he will never support any of them. That should come as little surprise, as McCarthy and his wife have been interviewed together and have talked openly about how they feel how people “don’t want them to have their right to be a Christian” in America today. Throw in twice voting to defund Planned Parenthood, voting against equal pay for women consistently, and voting against raising the debt ceiling, and you really start to get a big picture of how a box of rocks would get a higher SAT score than Kevin McCarthy. In the build-up to the 2016 election, McCarthy was trying to appease the lunatics in his party by promising publicly to turn a prospective Hillary Clinton administration into a never-ending line of hearings about faux-scandals, and teasing that they might vote on impeachment.

Kevin McCarthy was in the 2016 elections, coming from the most conservative district in California, and has proceeded to continue to shoot his mouth off and embarrass his party, including his admission that he was indifferent about a White Nationalist like Steve Bannon serving as an advisor to the President of the United States, or when audio of him laughing with Congressional colleagues about how he believes both Donald Trump (at the time of the recording, the GOP’s nominee for president), as well as a fellow California Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, were both being paid by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

He has gone back to Washington to vote against the interests of his constituents, consistently:

Kevin McCarthy is quickly becoming one of the most egregious liars in Congress, like how in May of 2017, he was claiming Trumpcare wouldn’t cause anyone to lose their Medicaid coverage, in spite of the assessment from the CBO and every medical organization that predicted it would do precisely that. In May of 2018, McCarthy also tried perpetuating the myth that social media platforms were “censoring” the opinions of conservatives, lashing out at Twitter for the fact that he couldn’t read a post from Fox News’ useful idiot Laura Ingraham. This, however, just let House Minority House Leader Nancy Pelosi come along to point out McCarthy was a tech-illiterate boob who didn’t know how to adjust his settings to see the post.

Meanwhile, Paul Ryan is retiring at the end of this term of Congress, and should, be some slim chance, the GOP hold onto control of the House, Kevin McCarthy is AGAIN angling to be Speaker of the House. The problem with that, again, remains that he’s an awful public speaker, and cracks under almost zero pressure in interviews. Your latest proof would be his interview with CNN’s Dana Bash from August of 2018 when he froze up when asked about how frequently the Trump White House were caught in lies. He finally snapped out of his stupor long enough to start attacking Robert Mueller and the FBI agents who are investigating the same links to Trump and Russia that Kevin McCarthy was caught on audio establishing as a real thing. Lord only knows what he’ll do if he starts echoing the Trump White House’s attacks on Elizabeth Warren for proving her Native American heritage when McCarthy’s own in-laws are in legal trouble for signing up for government loans for Native Americans while claiming 1/8 Cherokee heritage (that they apparently really don’t have).

Meanwhile, as the election approaches and anti-semitic and racist conspiracy theories have been spread by several Republican candidates in a Trumpian effort, who else has followed up a mass shooting at a synagogue and a serial bomber’s attacks by continuing to demonize George Soros with the same ads? Kevin McCarthy.

Now, we’re not sure how big the Blue Wave is gonna be in five days… but if it’s big enough to benefit McCarthy’s Democratic challenger, Tatiana Matta, a veteran’s advocate and military spouse whose ground game is running all through Bakersfield knocking on doors to pull the upset… then it’s officially a GOP bloodbath. McCarthy’s campaign has literally millions of dollars in fundraising advantage, and the district leans about +27 Republican compared to the national average… so it looks like he might still hang around to embarrass his party on cable news, going forward.



One Year Ago, November 1st, 2017: Kevin McCarthy (CA)… 2017 Update

Two Years Ago, November 1st, 2016: Kevin McCarthy (CA)… 2016 Update

Three Years Ago, November 1st, 2015: Kevin McCarthy (CA)… Original Profile

Four Years Ago, November 1st, 2014: Stacey Campfield (TN)