House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested that if House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) had been “trying to protect us from what was happening in Iran,” President Trump wouldn’t have authorized the strike that killed top Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani.
After the “Fox and Friends” hosts brought up Schiff’s Monday afternoon tweet in which he took issue with both the Soleimani strike and Trump’s threat to bomb Iranian cultural sites during a Tuesday morning segment, McCarthy was quick to criticize Schiff’s call for more congressional hearings and suggested that if the House intelligence chair didn’t focus so much on impeachment, then Trump wouldn’t have authorized the strike against Soleimani.
“You know what, he’s the chairman of the Intel Committee,” McCarthy said. “Maybe had he spent the last year working on that — trying to protect us from what was happening in Iran from the bombing of the tankers, Saudi Arabia taking down our drone — instead of taking that committee and making an impeachment, he would never have made that comment.”
McCarthy then recalled being with Trump the night of the Soleimani strike and repeated the Republican argument that the death of the top Iranian military official was justified because he “had continued to rise throughout the region to create problems not only for us, but the rest of the world.”
McCarthy added that “the world is safer today because this President took action and he stopped something from creating in the future” while also taking another whack at House Democrats.
“I don’t think it’s a place for them to play politics,” McCarthy said.
Watch McCarthy’s remarks below:
McCarthy: Soleimani strike wouldn't have happened if Schiff had "been trying to protect us" from Iran instead of impeaching Trump pic.twitter.com/tVIvxECVHU
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) January 7, 2020
