An excerpt from Congressman Steve King’s book, “Walking Through the Fire: My Fight for the Heart and Soul of America.”
There I was in the first full week of the 116th Congress, stripped of all my committees by the hand of Kevin McCarthy. K Street got the message from McCarthy, and PAC fundraising was shut off. My major donors were hounded to the ends of the earth. I was disparaged in nearly every media venue and shunned by many of my former political allies. There was no due process. In fact, there would be no venue in which to make my case.
McCarthy, the modern-day real McCarthyite, cowed the Steering Committee and the Republican Conference into stripping me of my committee assignments. Bari Weiss described well the kind of tactics McCarthy employed. “It’s not just about punishing the sinner,” Weiss told Bill Maher. “It’s not just about punishing the person for being insufficiently pure. It’s about this sort of secondary boycott of people who would deign to speak to that person or appear on a platform with that person.” The atmosphere was as toxic as I ever experienced. In the middle of all this madness, I did my best to keep my head, knowing it is impossible to reason with a lynch mob, especially when it’s led by the sheriff.
There were colleagues who did stand up for me, and they know I know who they are. They will always have my gratitude. I will not name them here so I don’t cause them any more retribution. They paid a price from leadership and may never know how much it cost them.
I soon found myself with four primary opponents all intent on defeating me in eighteen months. The chorus began, “King was kicked off his committees. We have no seat at the table. He has lost the confidence of leadership.” It is curious to me that throughout the entire primary campaign not one of my four opponents took issue with even a single vote of the thousands I cast in Congress. Neither did they disagree with any position I took on an issue. They only targeted my Achilles heel, the betrayal by my own Republican leadership…
It is an axiom of human nature that children and adults will use whatever argument serves their purpose as long as it’s effective and available to them. If I was golden on my votes and positions, I was vulnerable due to the withdrawal of my committee assignments, the political death sentence. My opponents would use this against me relentlessly and effectively. Again, McCarthy knew no one survives losing all his committees. It was becoming ever more evident he and Steve Stivers were planning this branding all along. To win in 2020, I knew I had to get my committee assignments back. So I set about playing the long game…
I pressed for meetings with McCarthy and with Republican Whip Steve Scalise. Each agreed to a meeting and told me so to my face. They assigned staff to set up the meeting during our conversations. Scalise was not to be taken at his word. He told his staff afterward to block any meeting with me. I have the emails. After persistent pressure, McCarthy finally consented to a scheduled meeting, set for Wednesday, January 29, 2020…
In the McCarthy meeting there were four people in the room. We each brought our chiefs of staff into the conversation. I presented the arguments mostly from the “Fact Check” document. McCarthy asked if that document was available to him. Of course, it had been available for nearly a year. McCarthy wanted time to read and consider my document but made no argument against my points. This turned out to be a ploy to buy time. In the business, it’s called “slow walking.”
I expected an answer within a week to my request to get my committees back and my seniority restored. I let three weeks pass before texting McCarthy on February 18, 2020:
Kevin, just checking to see if my fact check document has risen to a priority for you. It will be three weeks tomorrow that we discussed my committee assignments. Time is running out. We can discuss by phone, if you prefer. Thanks, Steve King.
From that day forward, I sent 20 texts to Kevin, and I got three responses, all promises to call. I also made an uncountable number of calls, each time leaving a message. McCarthy did finally connect with me on Sunday, April 19. By then, according to our discussion, the only barrier to restoring my committees was the Steering Committee. McCarthy had to canvass its members to measure any opposition. I also knew this was a slow-walk tactic because McCarthy handpicks the committee.
Still, I had to play out the game. In that Sunday phone call, we did reach an agreement. Since Kevin had two-and-a-half months to come up with an argument for why Gabriel and the New York Times were right and I was wrong, he surely came to the realization there was no such argument. His position was unsustainable in the light of day, so he had little choice but to agree with my position. Here is the transcript of the April 19, 2020 phone call:
KING: This is my understanding, and so that we understand each other, I’ll ask you this way: Will you go to the Steering Committee and advocate on my behalf to restore me to all my committees?
MCCARTHY: Yes.
KING: I don’t need anything, Kevin, I don’t need anything, and I don’t need any retribution or anything of that nature. I don’t need any compensation of any nature. I just need to just put things back to right. My constituents are suffering. So is the country.
MCCARTHY: No, I appreciate that. That was one of the things that really helped me make the decision is when you told me that.
The next morning, I held a rare conference call with all my staff in Washington and Iowa to tell them McCarthy and I reached an agreement, and I expected to be restored to all my committees within a week or two at the outside. Everyone was happy this was coming to an end. The long game was paying off. Marilyn voiced serious skepticism about McCarthy’s reliability, but I assured her his statement was too direct and definitive to be a lie.
Five days later I sent McCarthy this text:
Kevin, how did your discussion with Steering go? I would like to establish a unified message so I don’t get out in front of your skis. I have a debate this weekend. The topic certainly will come up. I will tell them the truth, of course, but I want you to have had the chance to position yourself. A phone call will work. Thanks, Steve King.
Still no response. Multiple texts later, without response from McCarthy, I sent him this text on May 11:
Kevin, I will be called upon to make a public statement on committee assignments today at a TV interview and at a debate this evening. Is there anything you would like me to add or a statement you would like to make? Steve King.
No answer again. So that evening in debate, I said this in the context of what I just described as the long overdue exoneration of Michael Flynn: “On April 20, (actually April 19, my mistake), Kevin McCarthy and I reached an agreement that he would advocate to the Steering Committee to put all of my committees back, all of my seniority.”
I continued, “When Congress comes back into session, when the Steering Committee can get together, I have Kevin McCarthy’s word, and that will be my time for exoneration.”
…
“As I moved around and talked with the Steering Committee members, I soon learned McCarthy did not speak with any of them. When I came to that conclusion, I knew I had to lock in all the necessary votes and present my vote count to McCarthy. By the end of the week, I counted 26 “yes” votes, three “no” votes and six “unknown” votes. It was a clear word from McCarthy as promised would have put me back on my committees, likely on a voice vote.
I was closing in, or so I thought. Then that Friday McCarthy held a press conference. A reporter asked a version of this question, “King says he has reached a deal with you and he will be restored to his committees and he will be exonerated.” McCarthy said immediately, “I never said that.” He went on to explain the Steering Committee would have to make the decision. He expected the committee would give me the same thumbs-down as before and even that vote would not come until the next Congress.
There is plenty more about Kevin McCarthy in King’s book, which can be ordered here.
