House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., flatly denied Monday he has been talking with budget director Mick Mulvaney about a move to force out House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
According to The Weekly Standard, Mulvaney spoke with the GOP California congressman about the possibility of holding a Speaker's vote before the midterm elections.
"I've talked with Kevin about this privately but not as much publicly," Mulvaney told the Standard.
"Wouldn't it be great to force a Democrat running in a tight race to have to put up or shut up about voting for [Minority leader Rep.] Nancy Pelosi [D-Calif.] eight weeks before an election? That's a really, really good vote for us to force if we can figure out how to do it."
But McCarthy insisted there has been no scheming between the two of them to get McCarthy into the House speakership before the election.
"Not on any planet," McCarthy said, CNN reported. "Look, Mulvaney and I are long-time friends. We go to dinner when we're back here on the early nights. The only thing Mulvaney has ever talked about was will you go to run for speaker if we keep the majority. Nothing different than that whatsoever."
"I don't understand The Weekly Standard, I thought I was very clear on that — that is not true. I don't know what somebody is trying to create here, but not true," McCarthy insisted, The Hill reported.
"The only thing we talk about — not about a Speaker race, we talk about how divided the Democrats are," McCarthy said, The Hill reported.
"People don't realize, you know, we were laughing one day, saying we're divided, here we are passing all those big pieces of legislation. If you sit with Democrats, they're totally divided."
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