Sean Hannity confronts Lauren Boebert for opposing McCarthy as speaker, asking: 'Is this a game show?'
- Fox News host Sean Hannity challenged Rep. Lauren Boebert on Wednesday.
- He criticised her refusal to back Rep. Kevin McCarthy's House speaker bid.
Fox News host Sean Hannity challenged Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert over her refusal to back Rep. Kevin McCarthy's House speaker bid.
In an unusually tense exchange between the MAGA lawmaker and conservative host, Hannity grilled Boebert on Wednesday over why she and 19 other Republicans were refusing to vote for McCarthy.
"Isn't it time for you and your side to pack it in considering he [McCarthy] has over 200 [votes] and you have 20?" Hannity asked the Colorado Republican.
"I understand the frustration. I promise you," she replied.
"I'm not frustrated," Hannity interrupted. "You didn't answer my question."
"There are more for us than against us," Boebert claimed.
In a situation not seen for a century, the election to choose a new Speaker of the House remains unresolved, despite two days of voting, as the GOP's slender House majority has been riven with infighting over McCarthy's candidacy.
On Tuesday, Boebert and the other Republicans who have so far opposed his bid said they would back Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio for the job instead, despite the fact that Jordan has ruled himself out and thrown his support behind McCarthy.
When Boebert said during the exchange that she'd support former President Donald Trump, Hannity mocked her for see-sawing between candidates, saying: "Is this a game show? Like we're gonna pick Jim Jordan one day, Trump the other day?"
The battle over the House speaker position has turned usually staunch political allies against each other.
Rep, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent member of the hard right GOP House faction, supports McCarthy's candidacy and has accused those opposing it of endangering the party's control of the House.
Even Trump, who members of the anti-McCarthy faction, including Boebert, have been firmly loyal to in the past, has failed to persuade the group to throw their support behind McCarthy.
As the House speaker election spills into its third day, Hannity warned Republicans that infighting was distracting the party from the more urgent task of holding President Joe Biden to account.
"If this fight goes on and on for day after day, week after week and the Republican agenda totally stalls out, you can forget about holding Biden accountable for pretty much anything," Hannity said.
"And the country will feel angry and frustrated and they will feel betrayed," he added.