House minority whip: ‘The keys have been handed over to extremists’

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) on Sunday said “the keys have been handed over to extremists” after the House elected Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to the Speakership.

“It is exactly the American people and the solutions they need to meet the challenges that were completely left out of the Speaker’s chaos we saw this week. It not only endangered our country’s national security, but it also showed that the keys have been handed over to extremists,” Clark told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Clark underlined the unity of Democrats in their agenda after the party banded together to vote for Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) in the successive contests with McCarthy.

The Republican won the top House leadership slot early Saturday after flipping a number of holdouts who had stalled any candidate from getting the needed majority of votes, making concessions to hard-liners in negotiations on the rules package.

Pressed Sunday on whether Democrats could find some common ground with the GOP in some of the concessions, like tweaks to the amending process for legislation proposals, Clark said the matter was a “smoke screen.”

“When they talk about process, that is a smoke screen,” Clark said.

“All the talk about process and amendments and germaneness, that is cover for what they’re really trying to do, which is dismantle the equities of our economy. And to make sure that their billionaire buddies continue to thrive at the expense of hard working American families,” the new House minority whip added.

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