Republican civil war explodes on Meet The Press
If anyone doubted that the Republican Party is in fact in turmoil, this morning’s uncivil exchange between Dave Brat (R-VA) and Charlie Dent (R-PA) on Meet the Press should dispel any doubts.
Dave Brat took exception to statements that Charlie Dent has been making about marginalizing the intransigent Republicans that have been holding the Republican Party hostage.
Dent told CNN moments after McCarthy withdrew from the race.
REP. CHARLIE DENT: The next Speaker should not appease those who make unreasonable demands. There are a number of members of our conference. You cannot get the yes on anything. For them the end will be the good.
In my view it’s come time to marginalize those members who doesn’t want to be part of the governing majority.
I’ve said for some time that in order to pass anything out of the House we need to assemble a bipartisan coalition whether it’s on the continuing resolution, the debt ceiling, we will have to assemble a bipartisan coalition. That’s the reality of this place and I don’t think that any of our leaders should make accommodations to those who are going to make unreasonable demands…
I don’t know what will happen. Anything is possible now. It’s pretty clear to me that a number of us are not going to simply appease or accede to those who will make unreasonable demands. And so I suspect in order to govern around here we need a bipartisan coalition on all major bills.
If we can’t get 218 Republican votes for a Speaker, then we’ll have to try other options. I don’t know what those options are, but I certainly don’t want to put somebody in the Speaker’s job who is going to appease those who are making unreasonable demands.
Charlie Dent’s comments fed the brawl started by Dave Brat on Meet the Press as both accused each other of siding with Nancy Pelosi. The cognitive dissonance was very apparent. Both factions within the Republican Party have circumvented their own caucus to work with Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats to get around their inability to coalesce on several issues.