Rep. Scott Perry stated on Sunday that Nancy Pelosi “managed Congress like a prison camp,” which is why he believes Kevin McCarthy will be a better speaker of the House going forward.
The leader of the House Freedom Caucus made the comment about the former House speaker when discussing why he changed his vote to support McCarthy after initially opposing him repeatedly on ABC’s “This Week” Late on Friday, McCarthy was chosen as speaker after defeating Perry’s (R-Pa.) and other Republicans’ resistance, which had lingered for several days.
“Let me start with this,” Perry remarked to presenter George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, “power yields nothing without a demand, never has, and never will. Frederick Douglass, who knew something about power, said this. Kevin McCarthy has never been the focus of this; instead, the American people’s power is at stake. With all due respect, Nancy Pelosi managed Congress like a prison camp with no oversight.
Pelosi stated last week that she believed the entire conflict was detrimental to the organisation she oversaw for two terms totaling four years.
On January 4, she tweeted, “All who serve in the House share a responsibility to bring dignity to this body.” Unfortunately, Republicans’ careless behaviour in choosing a Speaker is insulting, trivial, and unworthy of this institution.
In connection with the Capitol riots on January 6 and other initiatives to keep former President Donald Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election, Perry has been under investigation; on that day, the House select committee submitted Perry for a review by the House Ethics Committee. He was one of 19 Republicans who opposed McCarthy from the start, but all 19 (along with two others who changed their minds and ceased supporting McCarthy at some point during the election) finally stood aside to allow the California Republican to be elected on the 15th ballot.
The Douglass statement Perry used is linked to a speech the freed slave delivered in New York state in 1857 as part of his campaign to abolish slavery. “Find out just what any people will peacefully submit to and you have figured out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and they will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both,” the speaker continued.