Kevin McCarthy, we hardly knew ye … but we’re apparently only now getting acquainted. This three-minute-plus video unveils a pugnacity and toughness from the new House Speaker, the one who supposedly weakened himself to the point of a political fatality just three weeks ago.

It starts out with McCarthy ripping a reporter for complaining about an answer, and ends up destroying Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff, and by proxy Hakeem Jeffries along the way. Not to mention the media and its narratives about George Santos as a measuring stick, which McCarthy also shreds. This might be Peak McCarthy, but at least we can enjoy it now:

.@SpeakerMcCarthy to reporter: Let me be very clear & respectful to you. You ask me a question when I answer it it's the answer to your question. You don't get to determine whether I answer a question or not, okay? In all respect…what happens in the Intel Cmte you don't know. pic.twitter.com/WD57QB7m1v

— CSPAN (@cspan) January 25, 2023

Oddly — or not — this exchange didn’t get a lot of coverage today from the media. The Washington Post did report it, to their credit, although they managed to leave out the details that McCarthy provided:

McCarthy has argued that both Schiff and Swalwell are unfit to serve on the committee, citing Schiff’s work conducting the first impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump and Swalwell’s alleged ties to a Chinese intelligence operative. There has been no evidence of wrongdoing in relation to the allegation against Swalwell.

“This is not anything political. This is not similar to what the Democrats did,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday evening. “Those members will have other committees, but the Intel Committee, the Intel Committee’s responsibility” is national security, he said. “… I respect Hakeem Jeffries’s support of his conference and his people. But integrity matters.” …

Schiff told reporters that McCarthy is “carrying the dirty water” for Trump by leaving him out of the committee as retribution for his work during Trump’s first impeachment trial. Schiff was an impeachment manager for Trump’s first trial.

McCarthy only “cited Schiff’s work” in relation to the repeated lies that he told while chairing the Intel Committee, a point that the Post ignores. This report takes Schiff’s narrative at face value while failing to report the specifics of McCarthy’s claim. I’ll transcribe it for those who can’t watch the video, and to emphasize this point:

MCCARTHY: What did Adam Schiff do as the chairman of the Intel Committee? What Adam Schiff did [is] use his power as chairman and lied to the American public. Even the Inspector General said it. When Devin Nunes put out a memo, he said it was false. When we had a laptop, he used it before an election to be politics and say that it was false, and said it was the Russians, when he knew different, when he knew the intel. If you talk to John Ratcliffe, DNI, he came out ahead of time and said there was no intel to prove that, and he [Schiff] used his position as chairman — you know, when he knows he has information that the rest of America does not — and lied to the American public. When a whistleblower came forward, he [Schiff] said he did not know the individual, even though his staff had met with him and set it up.

So no, he does not have a right to sit on that. But I will not be like Democrats and play politics with these, where they removed Republicans from committees and all committees. So yes — he can serve on a committee, but he will not serve on Intel, because it goes to the national security of America. And I will always put them first, all right?

That is a rather robust bill of particulars, none of which have to do with Schiff’s work as an impeachment manager against Trump. Couldn’t the Post have included at least some of that, especially given Schiff’s nearly daily assurances in 2017 and 2018 that he personally saw indisputable evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia, which never materialized? For that matter, couldn’t the rest of America’s media just report that McCarthy distinguished between committee assignments in general and Intel assignments in particular relating to Schiff and Swalwell?

Apparently not. To do so would be to acknowledge that McCarthy had a point beyond mere retribution in rejecting Jeffries’ appointments, and would force them to push Jeffries to respond to the specifics of each case. That would interfere with their efforts this month to lionize the new House Democrat caucus leader while portraying McCarthy as a weakling.

McCarthy’s rejection is official and final nonetheless, and other Republicans are rallying to support McCarthy’s decision:

“House Democrats are attempting to erode the important national security work of the Intelligence Committee,” House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital Tuesday, before House Speaker McCarthy acted to keep Swallwell and Schiff off the panel.

“Eric Swalwell is a national security liability compromised by the Chinese Communist Party after he engaged in a years-long relationship with a suspected Chinese spy.

“Clearly, he has no place serving on the committee in charge of America’s top secrets, but House Democrats are shamefully looking the other way,” Stefanik added. “House Republicans put an end to Shifty Schiff’s regime over weaponizing this committee for his partisan purposes, and we will use this committee to strengthen our national security and provide critical oversight of our nation’s intelligence to restore Americans’ trust in these agencies.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who is the chairman of the newly formed House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, recently noted that the House speaker has “enormous latitude” for making a case to bar Swalwell and Schiff from the intelligence committee.

“When it comes to the Intelligence Committee, the speaker has enormous latitude,” Gallagher said last week. “And I think you can make a credible case that, given Rep. Swalwell’s past relationship and given Rep. Schiff’s conduct on the committee, that it’s in the interest of the institution to have them not on the committee.”

Neither man belongs within reach of classified material on intelligence any longer. Jeffries can put them on other standing committees instead. As McCarthy says, Jeffries can choose from 200 other House Democrats to fill those seats, and anything would be an improvement.

So … next question?