Former House Speaker McCarthy warns Marjorie Taylor Greene is ‘the canary in the coal mine’
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's decision to leave Congress early next year should serve as a warning to her colleagues."She’s almost like the canary in...
By Fox News · Fox News
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's decision to leave Congress early next year should serve as a warning to her colleagues. "She’s almost like the canary in the coal mine. And this is something inside Congress, they’d better wake up, because they are going to get a lot of people retiring, and they’ve got to focus," the former Republican House speaker said in an interview on Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime." Greene, a three-term representative from a solidly red district in northwest Georgia, a MAGA firebrand and strong supporter of President Donald Trump , announced on Friday night that she would step down from the House. Her stunning news came amid Greene's very public falling out with Trump over a handful of key issues, and in her statement and video announcing her decision, she made a sweeping indictment of the president and her party. HEADED FOR THE EXITS: WHY 3-DOZEN HOUSE MEMBERS AREN'T RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION Greene is one of nearly 40 current members of the House who are either leaving before their current two-year terms end, or who have said they won't seek re-election in next year's midterms. And the surge in retirements may impact next year's midterm elections , when Republicans are aiming to protect their fragile House majority. "We're above average," noted David Wasserman, a senior editor and elections analyst at the non-partisan political handicapper "The Cook Report," as he pointed to the pace of House retirement announcements so far this cycle. And we've still got five weeks left until the calendar hits 2026. Waves of retirement announcements traditionally come in the final month or two, amid the holiday season, in the year before congressional elections. The party breakdown so far on the retirements: 16 Democrats and 22 Republicans. A handful of the Democrats headed for the exits are in their 70s and 80s and retiring after long tenures in the House. The most prominent is 85-year-old former House Speaker Nancy P…