Escalation of violence in the US Congress
MP accuses McCarthy of elbow attack
November 15, 2023, 1:00 p.m
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Since the fall of Kevin McCarthy as chairman of the US House of Representatives, things have been simmering in the US Congress. In addition to verbal attacks, there is now apparently even a physical attack: McCarthy opponent Burchett accuses the ex-speaker of jostling in revenge.
The elected chairman of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, is said to have jostled his Republican colleague Tim Burchett. Burchett accused McCarthy of elbowing him in the kidneys in a hallway of the US Congress, as US broadcaster CNN and other media reported.
There is no video recording of the incident, but reporters present heard the exchange between the two, reported the Washington Post. According to his own statements, Burchett is one of the Republicans who, together with Democrats, voted to remove McCarthy as chairman of the House of Representatives in October.
McCarthy denied the allegation that he intentionally bumped into him. “I didn’t push or elbow anyone. It’s a narrow hallway,” McCarthy said. Burchett, in turn, described this as “not a serious explanation,” as CNN further reported. “There are 435 members of Congress there, and I was one of eight who voted against him,” Burchett said, according to the station. “There’s enough space, you could walk four abreast there. He decided to do what he did.”
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US media saw the incident as another sign of how tense the atmosphere currently is in the US Congress. On the same day, Republican US Senator Markwayne Mullin threatened to beat union boss Sean O’Brien during a hearing. During Tuesday’s committee meeting, the Oklahoma senator stood up and challenged Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters transportation workers’ union, to a fight.
The Washington Post wrote that breaches of decorum occurred Tuesday as lawmakers worked to prevent a government shutdown and ensure they could leave the city before the Thanksgiving holiday next week. The newspaper pointed out, among other things, that the US House of Representatives had just completed ten weeks of sessions in a row.
During this time, McCarthy, among others, was deposed in an unprecedented move. As a result, a contentious successor election had taken place among Republicans that “exposed deep, long-simmering divisions within the party.” The Republicans currently have the majority of votes in the US House of Representatives and therefore hold the presidency.