Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., allegedly elbowed or "shoved" Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., when he was speaking with a reporter Tuesday in the halls of Congress.
The wild exchange began innocently and apparently accidentally, according to an NPR reporter's first-hand account, but once Burchett realized it was McCarthy and potentially an intentional "shove," Burchett ran down McCarthy and his security entourage.
"Why'd you elbow me in the back Kevin?!" Burchett shouted to McCarthy, who he said he has not spoken with directly since Burchett signed on to the notice to vacate last month, according to the account posted to X. "Hey Kevin, you got any guts!?"
Burchett, who was talking with the reporter, initially believed the shove — which knocked him into the reporter — to have been a joke.
"Sorry Kevin didn't mean to elbow," Burchett told the reporter, calling McCarthy a "jerk" and saying something like that has not happened to him before.
That led Burchett to run toward McCarthy and his team for a confrontation, according to the account:
"Hey Kevin, why'd you walk behind me and elbow me in the back?" Burchett asked.
McCarthy: "I didn't elbow you in the back."
"You got no guts, you did so," Burchett replied. "The reporter said it right there, what kind of chicken move is that?
"You're pathetic, man, you are so pathetic."
Burchett went back to speaking with the reporter, saying "what a jerk" before shouting again to McCarthy: "You need security Kevin!"
That was the first "communication" between McCarthy and Burchett since the former speaker's ouster, according to the account.
"That's just it," he added. "He's just a jerk. He's just a childish little ..."
Burchett "in disbelief," gathered himself before the "stunned" reporter.
"He's on a downhill spiral," Burchett said. "He just, that was pretty gutless of him. I'm disappointed in his ... in him."
Recapping the confrontation with CNN, saying the NPR report was "very accurate," Burchett rebuked the "sucker punch" to his "kidney," adding McCarthy struck him and ran like a kid who would "hide behind his mama's skirt."
"I wasn't looking to knock him out or anything," he added to CNN.
"It still hurts, because it was a shot to the kidneys. I'm probably not going to do an ethics complaint on him. He's not worth it. He's going to be gone here after Christmas or after the new year."
Burchett acknowledged the financially powerful former speaker is engaging in primary retaliation, too.
"He's got $17 million to work against me," Burchett told the reporter. "And he's just a — he should have kept his word. I think that just showed what he's about and it's unfortunate."
The previously reported communication between Burchett and McCarthy was an alleged shaming of his praying about whether to vote to vacate then-Speaker McCarthy.
"He just said something that was very condescending to me — and it doesn't really matter at this point — but at that point, I thought to myself that that pretty much sealed it right there," Burchett said of the 11th-hour call to try to sway him from being one to vacate.
"I thought, 'Well, I'm going to listen to him. I'm glad he's calling. I'm sorry it's right here at the last hour, but I'm going to listen to him.' And it was something condescending about my religious beliefs. And I just thought — I don't need that. And that answered my question right there," Burchett added.
"When he talked to me, it could have been in a different tone, different attitude," he said. "And to me — it just disappointed me."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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