Republican leader fulminates in hours-long diatribe

WASHINGTON — Part political performance, part stall tactic, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy unleashed a long, rambling and vitriolic speech overnight, seizing control of the House floor and delaying passage of President Biden’s sweeping domestic policy bill.

Sneering with disdain one minute, spilling sarcasm the next, McCarthy carried on for more than eight hours as Thursday night became Friday morning. He spewed a tirade of grievances that reached far beyond Biden’s legislative package, morphing into a monologue of complaints over what’s wrong with the country and the Democrats who control Washington.

Far from the “happy conservative” he claimed to be, the Republican from Bakersfield debuted a new role: angry heir to the Donald Trump legacy, picking up where the former president left off, mercilessly attacking his political opponents and their ideas with a ferocity that is rare even for the divided halls of Congress.

“If I sound angry, I am,” he said as the speech began.

Overheated rhetoric is nothing new in politics, but the postTrump era has set the bar for a troubling new normal, a climate that has allowed fiery speeches to quickly devolve into more dangerous terrain — like the former president’s rallying cry that sparked the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol trying to overturn Biden’s election victory.

McCarthy’s speech began as almost any other during the final debate on Biden’s bill, which passed just hours after McCarthy concluded his speech around 5:10 a.m. Democrats were laboring to wrap up work on the package of social services and climate change programs, shelving their own differences to deliver on the president’s domestic priorities.

Typically, floor speeches last one minute during debate, but McCarthy used the prerogative granted party leaders to speak as long as they wish. As the minutes stretched to hours, it was clear McCarthy’s speech was becoming something else — a moment.

He tore into Biden’s package as reckless overspending, criticized Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s running of the House and swerved from topic to topic — inflation, immigration, the threat of a rising China, his childhood in California, the Lincoln presidency, the Jim Crow era, even the influence of the movie “Red Dawn” on his politics — all while scowling across the aisle.

Dozens of Republicans, some sitting directly behind McCarthy, urged him on. Democrats on the other side booed, and some tweeted snickering replies.

Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, tweeted: “If you took the worst orator in the world/Gave him the worst speech in the world/ And made him read it for the longest time in the world/That would be a lot like listening to Kevin McCarthy tonight. Except, probably better.”