Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy currently "doesn't have the votes" to become speaker if Republicans take back control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms.
The Georgia Republican spoke about McCarthy's future prospects while appearing on the latest episode of Rep. Matt Gaetz's "Firebrand" podcast published Thursday.
"Right now, we know that Kevin McCarthy has a problem in our [Republican] conference. He doesn't have the full support to be speaker," Greene told colleague Gaetz, R-Fla. "I think there's a door open for a challenger."
Greene was asked if she respected McCarthy, R-Calif., and the rest of the House GOP leadership.
"I can't respect leadership that doesn't hold people accountable but yet allows people like me and [Rep.] Paul Gosar to be constantly trampled and abused and will throw us under the bus at the first given chance," she said.
Greene in early February was removed from both of her committees after Democrats said she had spread hateful and violent conspiracy theories. The House on Nov. 17 voted to censure Gosar, R-Ariz., and stripped him of his committee assignments for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., with a sword.
"[McCarthy] doesn't have the votes [to become speaker] that are there because there's many of use that are very unhappy about the failure to hold Republicans accountable while conservatives like me, Paul Gosar, and many others just constantly take the abuse by the Democrats," Greene said.
A strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, Greene said that to earn her support, McCarthy would need to boot anti-Trump Republicans and "traitors" Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., from the House GOP conference.
"Do you know the excuse that I was given of why we can't remove them from the conference? 'Oh, but Marjorie, we'll lose committee seats, our conference will lose committee seats,'" she said. "Well guess what? I lost two committee seats. And then Paul Gosar lost one committee seat. So, I don't see any reason why we can't kick off these two Republicans, kick 'em out of our conference."
Greene also took aim at Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., who joined Kinzinger among 13 Republicans to vote for President Joe Biden's $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
"Katko's not a Republican, he's a Democrat," Greene said. "The [National Republican Congressional Committee] needs to stop playing this majority-maker game."
She was referring to the NRCC protecting moderates and elevating them to positions of power on committees.
"[The leaders] actually reward them and they move them on the steering committee where they're involved in all kinds of decision-making, all kinds of roles in leadership but they're not actually Republicans, they're actually Democrats."
Greene said conservatives need to take control of the House Republican conference.
"What we need to do is we need to hold to our conservative values," she said. "We need to actually give Americans something to vote for. Because I know a lot of Republicans ... they're Republican in their heart, they're Republican in they're thinking ... but they don't even vote because all they see is a bunch of politicians that never actually do the job.
"We have to take back the House with Republicans with a plan that are actually going to put it into action instead of talk about it on Fox News."
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