Anger as top US Republican jokes about hitting Pelosi

— The top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives faced calls to apologize or resign Sunday after joking about hitting speaker Nancy Pelosi with a gavel.

It marked a sharp escalation in a nasty spat between the Republican minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Pelosi, the chamber’s top Democrat.

At a fundraising dinner Saturday night in Tennessee, McCarthy spoke with optimism about prospects for his party retaking the House in midterm elections next year.

At one point attendees presented him with an oversized gavel, prompting him to joke that — should he become speaker — he would struggle to resist striking Pelosi with it.

“I want you to watch Nancy Pelosi hand me that gavel. It will be hard not to hit her with it but I will bang it down,” McCarthy said to cheers and laughter from the room, according to details shared by a Washington Post reporter and a local Nashville journalist who were at the event.