House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) vowed to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from her committee assignment for her “repeated antisemitic and anti-American remarks.”
McCarthy made the proclamation to remove Omar from her position on the Foreign Affairs Committee during a speech he delivered on Saturday at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2022 leadership meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“We watch antisemitism grow, not just on our campuses, but we watched it grow In the halls of Congress,” McCarthy told the audience.
“I remember what she said about me,” McCarthy said. “I remember what she said about Israel. I remember what she said about the [U.S.-Israel] relationship. I remembered it so much.”
“I promised you last year, that as speaker, she will no longer be on Foreign Affairs, and I’m keeping that promise,” he said as the crowd cheered.
He doubled down on his promise in a tweet that read: “Last year, I promised that when I became Speaker, I would remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee based on her repeated antisemitic and anti-American remarks. I’m keeping that promise.”
However, Twitter attached a fact-check to McCarthy’s tweet, and disputed his ability to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee.
“The speaker does not have the power to remove a member from a standing committee. Foreign Affairs is a standing committee,” the Twitter fact-check declared. “Each party has their own rules and procedures for assigning committee roles. Only a majority vote by the entire house could remove Rep. Omar.”
In January, McCarthy first floated the idea of not only removing Omar from the committee, but also yanking Democrats Adam Schiff (Calif.), and Eric Swalwell (Calif.) from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
“The Democrats have created a new thing where they’re picking and choosing who can be on committees,” McCarthy said. “Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who can be on committee. But this new standard which these Democrats have voted for — if Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the private sector, there is no reason why he should be given one to be on Intel or Homeland Security. He will not be serving there.”
McCarthy will likely become the next speaker of the House once Republicans take the majority in January.
In March 2018, Omar claimed that McCarthy’s support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins.”
Omar took shots at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She also accused American lawmakers who are pro-Israel of having dual loyalty.
In 2012, Omar claimed that Israel had “hypnotized the world.”