Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) (C) talks briefly with reporters as he heads into House Republican caucus leadership elections in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on November 15, 2022 in Washington, DC. A supporter of former President Donald Trump’s lie about the 2020 election, Biggs is challenging House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for leader of the caucus. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 6:23 PM PT – Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs has doubled down on his challenge against Kevin McCarthy for the position of House Speaker.

On Tuesday, Biggs (R-Ariz.) announced that he’s running for Speaker to break the establishment.

This comes after he lost to McCarthy during the House GOP’s private vote for Speaker. However, the congressman said he’s challenging McCarthy again, this time during the public vote on the House floor on January 3rd. In an exclusive interview with OAN, Biggs said that he’s getting a lot of support within the GOP.

“I’ll just tell you that, I think that you look at it and say, how does an establishment become an establishment, and if we continue to elect the same leaders, we are going to keep doing the same thing that we are doing and we will not make much change,” he said. “And I think people fundamentally will like to see us make a change.”

Biggs said McCarthy does not have the 218 votes needed to secure the Speaker’s gavel. Biggs is aiming to give his colleagues an alternative.  

Newly appointed White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre holds her first news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on May 16, 2022 in Washington, DC. Jean-Pierre stepped into her new role after former Press Secretary Jen Psaki left the White House to reportedly take a job with MSNBC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 5:21 PM PT – Tuesday, December 6, 2022

The White House weighed in on the release of the Twitter Files, the internal documents exposing the platform’s handling of certain information.

On Monday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was specifically pressed on the suppression of news reports in 2020 about the Hunter Biden laptop story. On Friday, independent journalist Matt Taibbi unveiled the Twitter Files in a lengthy thread.

“So, look, we see this as an interesting, uh, a coincidence,” Jean-Pierre said. “If I may, that he would so haphazardly push this distraction, that is, uh, full of old news, if you think about it.”

In his tweet, Taibbi cited specific moves used by Twitter to suppress certain posts by labeling them as un-safe and blocking users from sharing links to the story through direct messages. The social media company claimed that those tweets violated its hacking policy.

The Twitter team would censor accounts that re-tweeted the Hunter story, including the account of President Trump’s Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

However, the current press secretary claimed that the release of the Twitter Files was CEO Elon Musk’s attempt draw attention away from itself.

“At the same time, Twitter is facing very real and very serious questions,” Jean-Pierre said. “About the rising volume of anger, hate, and antisemitism on their platform.”

Meanwhile, Republicans such as Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said the big data dump showed that Twitter executives were working directly with the Biden administration.

“This is Twitter acting as an arm for the Biden campaign,” Senator Cruz explained. “Look, that’s almost how you task an employee. Hey, here’s five more to take care of. Handle these. Done.”

Cruz said that the internal communications bombshell is proof that Democrats and big tech are in cahoots. This could explain why many other high-profile figures are now coming forward demanding how Twitter may have censored them.

Whether or not Musk decides to release more Twitter files in the future remains to be seen.