Kevin McCarthy calls Liz Cheney’s primary a ‘referendum on Jan 6’

Cheney claps back and says House minority leader’s criticism is ‘word salad’

US House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has dubbed a potential defeat of Liz Cheney in the Wyoming GOP primary election to be a “referendum” on the Jan 6 committee probing the Capitol insurrection last year.

The Wyoming representative has in turn clapped back at Mr McCarthy by saying it was “really difficult to understand that word salad”.

Speaking to Fox News on Monday in Wyoming, where Mr McCarthy has campaigned for Ms Cheney’s challenger Harriet Hageman, the House minority leader said he believes the incumbent Wyoming representative will lose the primary elections.

“I don’t think that she’s going to win” Mr McCarthy told Fox News’ Rich Edson. “I think it’s going to be a referendum on the January 6 Committee.”

The House minority leader also said in the interview endorsing Ms Hageman that her focus was on the issues of the district, while Ms Cheney was geared towards a completely different objective.

“Her whole focus has been against one individual, whether she has information or not, instead of focusing on her district itself.”

Mr McCarthy also said he belives Republicans will be able to secure a victory in the upcoming elections and he would become the next speaker.

“I believe so. We’ll win the majority and I’ll be speaker. Yes,” he said.

“It’s really difficult to understand that word salad,” her campaign told Fox News in a statement.

“Was there an actual sentence in there somewhere?”

Ms Cheney, a leader of the Republican resistance against Donald Trump who serves as the vice chair of the Jan 6 committee, is fighting to save her seat as opinion polls predict a comprehensive victory for her opponent.

Ms Hageman, who enjoys the support of the former president, has fought the campaign to replace Ms Cheney by harnessing the full fury of the Trump movement.

A victory for Ms Hageman would be perceived as a testament to Mr Trump’s ongoing popularity in the state where he won his most convincing result in the 2020 election – taking nearly 70 per cent of the vote.

While some analysts see Ms Cheney’s expected loss in Wyoming as the end of her political career, the senior Republican is reportedly contemplating a 2024 bid for president which would most likely pit her against Mr Trump.