House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy endorses Liz Cheney's Trump-backed primary challenger

Kevin McCarthy endorsed a right-wing candidate who is running against Liz Cheney in the GOP primary.

The endorsement of Hageman by McCarthy, a colleague and a member of his caucus, highlights the wide rift between McCarthy and Cheney.

McCarthy said in a statement to The Federalist that she looks forward to working with her.

A Cheney spokesman told Politico that Hageman must be really desperate after the McCarthy endorsement.

Hageman, a former gubernatorial candidate, has raised $1 million so far through her campaign and is receiving support from GOP megadonor Peter Thiel, a Trump ally and Silicon Valley billionaire.

Hageman recently told Fox News that Wyoming deserves to be represented by someone who cares about the state, not someone who is consumed with her own personal war with President Trump.

Cheney was the third-highest ranking House Republican and served alongside McCarthy in House leadership. Their relationship deteriorated in early 2021, when Cheney voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol riots, the most senior House Republican to do so.

The Republican caucus voted to replace Cheney as leader in May 2021, after she criticized the former president.

After losing her position in House GOP leadership, Cheney accepted an appointment from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, a panel many Republicans have decried as partisan and unfair. The only two Republicans on the committee are Cheney and Kinzinger.

The Republican National Committee voted to censure Cheney and Kinzinger for serving on the January 6 committee at its winter meeting in February, with the resolution accusing the two of persecuting ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.

Several Senate Republicans rebuked the censure and term "legitimate political discourse" with Senate Minority Leader McConnell saying it was not the job of the RNC.

McCarthy said that those who broke in and caused damage should be in jail, but he argued that the subpoena of RNC members was not related to the persecution of legitimate political discourse.

Kinzinger said the RNC censure could be a pretty big backfire, and that McCarthy will be beholden to the far-right wing of the GOP if he becomes speaker.