Hume: Chaffetz Is a ‘Manifestation’ of Trump Syndrome

‘McCarthy started unraveling process by his gaffe on the committee, which gave people some kind of a reason, an excuse, not to support him’

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MCCARTHY: "Look, this is not what you're going to see with speaker of the House. Never mind tension, to imply anything. And that's -- I want to be very clear with my colleagues, very clear with this country of where we're going."

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WALLACE: "House majority leader and candidate for speaker, Kevin McCarthy, trying to walk back his linking the House Benghazi Committee to Hillary Clinton's drop in the polls. And it's time now for our Sunday group: FOX News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Julie Pace, who covers the White House for 'The Associated Press', Ben Domenech, cofounder of the web magazine "The Federalist", and Christi Parsons who reports on the White House for "Tribune" newspapers. Brit, how damaging was the statement both to his prospects to be speaker and also to the work of the Benghazi committee? And what do you make of someone like Jason Chaffetz, a member, you know, a chairman of the House committee, announcing that he's going to oppose McCarthy to the right?"

HUME: "Well, I think in the case of Chaffetz, if it hadn't been he, there would have been somebody else. There is another candidate in the race who is less prominent than Chaffetz. So, Chaffetz has obviously a better chance. I think the episode was damaging to the committees investigating Benghazi. It gives the Democrats a talking point, a shillelagh really that they can beat the Republicans on this over the head with, ad infinitum. I think it was very damaging to McCarthy. McCarthy -- Chaffetz is right. McCarthy has a majority support in the Republican caucus, but it doesn't have 218. So, if they go to the floor with him as kind of their nominee and the people on the right who don't want him don't vote for him, he can't win. Then they go to a series of votes, it could go on for a long time. We're a long way from having this matter settled. McCarthy I think started the unraveling process by his gaffe on the committee, which gave people kind of an excuse, a reason not to support him. So, this is -- this is a manifestation, Chris of the divisions within the Republican Party we are seeing reflected in Donald Trump's ascendancy, and the complaints we continually hear about the leaders in both House and Senate, and I don't think there's any way of knowing where this is going to go, or end up."

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