Two Republican lawmakers were overheard on Capitol Hill Thursday condemning House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs committee.
According to Roll Call, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) were discussing the move in an elevator after the vote and concluded that it was a terrible idea.
Buck reportedly called it the “stupidest vote in the world,” and Simpson said it will only make Omar a “martyr.” Both lawmakers also agreed that it was retaliation for Democrats removing GOP lawmakers from committees in the last Congress.
After publicly speaking their minds, they reportedly asked other passengers in the elevator to “not let leadership know their thoughts.”
Buck was initially opposed to removing Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. He told Meet The Press last week that “we should not engage in this tit for tat.”
However, he ended up supporting the measure after a phone call with McCarthy, during which the Speaker suggested reforming the process for stripping members of their committee assignments, according to The Hill.
The vote on the resolution to remove Omar from the panel was 218 to 211 and fell strictly along party lines. Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) voted “present”.
