No, McCarthy didn’t say Pelosi should be prosecuted, jailed

There seems to be no love lost between House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

In 2021, McCarthy joked that it would be hard not to hit Pelosi, a Democrat, with the speaker’s gavel if the Republicans take control of the chamber in the 2022 midterms. A few months later, Pelosi’s office issued a press release titled, "Is Kevin McCarthy OK?" that mocked McCarthy’s efforts to delay a vote on President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act.

But we couldn’t find evidence that McCarthy said Pelosi "should be prosecuted and jailed," as a recent Facebook post claims. 

"‘She should be prosecuted and jailed’ — Kevin McCarthy exposed Nancy Pelosi with entire Dem," reads a confusing July 11 Facebook post.  

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

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Instagram posts

stated on October 27, 2024 in an Instagram post

Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz “says that if Democrats win they’ll make (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) speaker of the house.”

Spokespeople for McCarthy and Pelosi did not immediately respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the post. 

But we looked  for a credible source attributing the statement to McCarthy and found none. Searching for the quote and McCarthy’s name on Google yielded three results — two Facebook quotes and a YouTube video. 

In the video, which appears in the Facebook post, McCarthy criticizes Pelosi and the proposed COVID-19 relief bill from the House floor on Feb. 26, 2021. He didn’t say she should be prosecuted and jailed. 

He also didn’t say as much at a press conference that day, when he again discussed the COVID-19 relief bill, which he called "Pelosi’s Payoff Bill." 

We rate this statement False.