Former President Donald Trump's ex-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, said Thursday that he'd "love to see" the Speaker of the House title taken from current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and handed to his old boss.
"I would love to see the gavel go from Nancy Pelosi to Donald Trump," Meadows said on Steve Bannon's War Room Thursday.
"People would go crazy. As you know you don't have to be an elected member of Congress to be the speaker. She would go from tearing up a speech to having to give the gavel to Donald Trump," Meadows added, referring to Pelosi ripping up her copy of Trump's State of the Union speech in February 2020.
"Oh, she would go crazy."
Meadows' comments come as the former chief of staff has criticized current Republican leaders in Congress. Speaking on an episode Florida Representative Matt Gaetz's podcast released Thursday, Meadows gave Republican leaders a "D" grade when it comes to their efforts to combat President Joe Biden's administration.
"Listen, you need to make Democrats take tough votes, you need to make sure that when you've got them on the ropes that you don't throw in the white towel of surrender and that's what's happened," Meadows said, referring to the vote on the infrastructure bill earlier this month, during which 13 Republicans joined Democrats to vote for the bill.
Later in the podcast, Meadows said: "If you're going to be the speaker of the House, you've got to be able to control those members."
Like Bannon, Meadows has refused to testify in front of the House committee investigating the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Bannon was indicted for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena after the House of Representatives sent a criminal referral against him to the Justice Department in late October. But this week,the committee said that it would grant Meadows more time to provide information to lawmakers before attempting to hold him in contempt of Congress.
Republicans, who are hoping to win control of the House of Representatives in the upcoming midterms, have an advantage in 2022, a recent poll found. A survey conducted by ABC News and The Washington Post published Sunday found that more than 51 percent of voters said they would vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterms. Pollsters said that survey shows the largest midterm advantage for the GOP out of the "110 ABC/Post polls to ask this question since November 1981."
They added that heading into the midterms, Democrats are facing "soaring economic discontent, a president who's fallen 12 percentage points underwater in job approval and a broad sense that the party is out of touch with the concerns of most Americans; 62 percent say so."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Xander Landen is a Newsweek weekend reporter. His focus is often U.S. politics, but he frequently covers other issues including ... Read more
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