On Sunday, September 6, 2026, Lisa McClain went on CBS's "Face the Nation" and was asked whether she supports the reelection of her Ohio colleague Max Miller, whom Margaret Brennan introduced as "the Ohio Republican congressman who's been accused of domestic abuse by his two former partners."
McClain is the House Republican Conference Chair — the fourth-ranking Republican in the House. Her answer was not that the allegations were false, or that she had looked into them. It was this:
"I support anybody with an R behind their name."
She added, in the same interview: "At the end of the day, he's our nominee right now. I wish the allegations weren't true."
What she is supporting
On July 30, 2026, Miller's ex-wife, Emily Moreno, asked a court for a restraining order barring Miller from contacting her lawyers. In her filings she alleged that Miller verbally and physically abused her and their two-year-old daughter. According to CBS News, she says he threw boiling water at her, pointed a gun at her, and threw her against a wall — and that their daughter suffered a fractured clavicle and bruising.
Emily Moreno's father is Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio. He said in August that his daughter "lives in constant fear of this man," that he now picks his granddaughter up at a police station for custody exchanges because he does not know "what this guy's capable of," and that Miller "should not serve in the House of Representatives." We covered that when he said it.
Miller denies everything. On an August 2 livestream he said his former wife "is engaging in a pattern of reporting incredible, serious and destructive allegations with absolutely no evidence." To rebut her, he released a Dropbox folder of documents — which, CBS reported, appeared to include naked photographs of his own daughter.
Her own party has already broken with him
McClain's line was that she supports anybody with an R next to their name. A lot of Republicans with an R next to their names have declined to.
Brennan read her the list on air: Katie Britt of Alabama, Jim Banks of Indiana, Jon Husted of Ohio, Roger Marshall of Kansas and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia have all called on Miller to resign or quit, and Tim Sheehy of Montana said "this guy is clearly a degenerate sociopath. He should step aside and seek help." Miller's former father-in-law, a sitting Republican senator, says he needs "serious psychological help."
President Trump himself called Miller on August 3 — the day before the deadline to withdraw without triggering a special-election primary in Ohio — to raise concerns, CBS reported at the time.
Miller did not withdraw. The deadline passed on August 4.
So the position McClain is defending is not the party's consensus. It is leadership's, and only leadership's. Speaker Mike Johnson took the same line on August 31, calling Miller "a great member of Congress" and describing the allegations as "some issues in his personal life."
"Let the process play out"
McClain's other formulation was that "divorces are ugly" and "at the end of the day, we got to let the process play out."
That is a reasonable thing to say about a contested custody filing. It is a strange thing to say as a reason to actively campaign for someone in the middle of it. Nothing about letting a court process play out requires the fourth-ranking House Republican to go on national television and vouch for the man.
She then explained what the vouching is for:
"I'm focused on winning the House back, taking the House back, keeping the House because we are the only party that's actually putting more money in your pocket, making sure that crime is down, securing the border, and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. And Max Miller has been a good advocate for his constituents doing that."
Republicans hold a narrow House majority. The party in the White House usually loses seats in a midterm. That is the whole calculation, and McClain said it out loud: the seat is worth more than the question.
This is not McClain's first careful sentence
McClain told POLITICO in February 2025 that the secret to her leadership job was honesty — "just tell the truth." We went through her record against that standard: in the same interview she repeated a false claim about Social Security, and a month later she told a Michigan mother there were no cuts to Medicaid, then voted for the bill that cut it.
"I support anybody with an R behind their name" is at least candid. It is also a description of a job she is not doing.
What the record shows
Lisa McClain, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House, said on national television on September 6, 2026 that she supports Max Miller's reelection because "I support anybody with an R behind their name." Miller's ex-wife has told an Ohio court he threw boiling water at her, pointed a gun at her, and injured their two-year-old daughter. Six Republican senators named on the program had already called on him to quit, and a seventh, the accuser's own father, says he should not serve in the House. McClain's stated reason for backing him anyway is holding the House majority.
Source
House GOP conference chair says Rep. Max Miller is "our nominee right now" despite abuse allegations by Sophia Vlahakis, CBS News, September 6, 2026, and the program's own transcript. Photo: CBS News.
