Rep. Renee Ellmers blasted Tea Party Republicans yesterday for launching a half-baked movement to unseat House Speaker John Boehner in today’s leadership election. In an interview on Newsmax TV yesterday, the North Carolina Republican called the group challenging Boehner, which is led by Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., “bad actors” who are “acting out” because they “thrive” on “media attention.”
“Those who are acting out right now, though, are getting some media attention,” she said. “That’s all it is. It’s media attention. These are folks that thrive on it. They’re bad actors right now because they’re acting as if they’re going against the party and there’s really no substance to it whatsoever. If they truly meant what their plan was for a new speaker of the House or moving an agenda in a different way, then they should have acted months ago and they did not.”
When host Ed Berliner asked Ellmers, who was elected in the 2010 Tea Party wave, if the rebelling members of Congress were Tea Party members, she distanced herself: “I don’t know what they associate themselves with, but I can tell you that they get a lot of media attention.”
