House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declared Friday that “there will be a day of reckoning” for President Biden following a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed 13 U.S. service members and dozens of Afghan civilians.
However, the minority leader did not join calls from many of his rank-and-file Republicans for the commander in chief to resign or be impeached.
“Look, I’m extremely frustrated with the president. As I said, if you want to be president of the free world, you have to have the trust, faith and confidence of the American public. President Biden lost that yesterday,” McCarthy told reporters in a news conference in the Capitol.
“There will be a day of reckoning,” he added.
But given Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline to pull all U.S. troops out of the country, McCarthy said the focus should now be squarely on bringing Americans home safely from Afghanistan.
“Right now, in the next five days, everyone’s responsibility should only be focused on getting the Americans out,” McCarthy said. “When that day passes, we can take up anything to hold [Biden] accountable for the actions that have been taken, the lies that have been given, the misdecisions that have put Americans in harm’s way.”
A handful of House Republicans, including those seeking higher office in 2022, called on Biden to resign on Friday.
Among them are Reps. Billy Long and Vicky Hartzler, who are both running for the GOP nomination for a Senate seat in Missouri, and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who is running for governor.
“Biden has become the portrait of this chaos, and his standing in America, and the world, is forever diminished,” Hartzler wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Examiner. “It is time he realize this and acknowledge that America’s recovery, both domestically and across the globe, begins with his resignation as president. It is the right thing to do.”
Biden, however, has no intention of resigning, and Democrats, who control the House, will not impeach him.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also has rebuffed McCarthy’s demand that she call the House back into session to address the dire situation in Afghanistan.
He reiterated those calls on Friday, arguing that lawmakers need more opportunities to question top Biden officials about the withdrawal and attack and to pass legislation by Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) ensuring Americans are not left behind.
“Speaker Pelosi needs to call Congress back in session to get a comprehensive classified briefing from the Biden administration and to pass Rep. Gallagher’s bill to prohibit the president from withdrawing our troops until every single American is out of Afghanistan,” McCarthy said. “This isn’t the time for doing nothing. This is the time for decisive leadership. It’s not difficult to call Congress back. In a Pelosi Congress, you can vote by proxy.”