WASHINGTON ― Reps. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) got into a physical altercation Tuesday inside the Capitol basement.
As the two were leaving a Republican meeting ahead of a key government funding vote in the afternoon, McCarthy passed Burchett and, according to the Tennessee lawmaker, elbowed him square in the back.
“I can still feel it, believe it or not,” Burchett told HuffPost about an hour after the incident. “It was a clean shot to the kidney.”
An NPR reporter who witnessed the moment described it as a shove by McCarthy. Burchett then accosted the former speaker.
“Hey Kevin, why’d you walk by me and elbow me in the back?” Burchett said, according to an audio recording by Washington Post reporter Marianna Sotomayor, who was interviewing McCarthy at the time.
“I did not elbow you in the back,” McCarthy said, laughing.
“You are so pathetic,” Burchett said.
“Thank you, Tim,” McCarthy said.
The bad blood between the two men is well known ― Burchett was one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy from the speaker’s office last month.
“He’s just a bully with $17 million and a security detail,” Burchett told reporters. “I’m not gonna be fighting him or anything. It’s not gonna be a fist fight. It would be a very short fist fight, I can tell you that.”