Rep who quit Freedom Caucus: Republicans are thanking me

The Republican lawmaker who resigned from the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) says his GOP colleagues have thanked him for speaking out against the group’s “tactics.”

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), who publicly broke with the caucus Wednesday, told The Hill’s Molly K. Hooper that fellow GOP lawmakers, “some HFC members and others,” have privately approached him to say “thank you for saying that, it needed to be said.”

{mosads}McClintock, a social and fiscal conservative, wrote in a Wednesday letter to the HFC: “I know that every member of the HFC sincerely supports these (conservative) principles, but as I have expressed on many occasions during our meetings, I believe the tactics the HFC has employed have repeatedly undermined the House’s ability to advance them.”

He specifically criticized the group’s demands that funds for Planned Parenthood be blocked as part of a bill to keep the government open.

To hear McClintock detail more examples and discuss the reaction to his public break, please watch the video above.