‘So weak he’ll promise anything to anyone’

Bob Unruh
WND News Center

The Republican Party will be the majority in the U.S. House in just days, and there undoubtedly will be many fights with the Democrats who, under Nancy Pelosi’s autocratic leadership, have been the bosses there.

But the first big fight is going to be Republican vs. Republican.

For the speakership.

Fox News explained suggested the looming battle will be “like an explosion inside a dairy with a lot of ‘spilled milk.'”

This will have to be resolved before the party can take on the bigger challenges it already has identified: “the border crisis, tackle inflation, impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop and wheel in Dr. Anthony Fauci.”

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a frontrunner for the post, is trying to put it in terms that make the situation clear.

“If we don’t get this right, we’re going to fail the American public. This has to get done. It’s delaying our ability to really govern,” he said.

While he has a majority of the GOP members of Congress on his side, the vote for speaker needs a majority of all members, and he doesn’t have that yet.

Depending on a successful campaign for speaker are committee assignments and chairmanships.

One faction of the party already has suggested that they will work to tap a non-member to serve as speaker, a move that is not prohibited but never has happened.

Some Republicans believe they could court a former member to stand in. Someone who could secure the votes of Republicans and some Democrats in a coalition, the report said. Even President Donald Trump has been suggested as speaker.

In dueling commentaries at the Daily Caller News Foundation, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz expressed different perspectives.

Greene said simply that the reality is “no one is running against Kevin McCarthy for speaker.”

She cited party leaders Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise and more, and said she’s had enough of the Democrats and is ready for GOP leadership.

“I am ready for our majority because I believe there is real work to be done to save our country. And the last thing I want is everything blown up on day one simply because a few dislike Kevin McCarthy, who is promoting the very agenda they believe in,” she said.

She accused a few in the party of refusing to work together.

“Let’s start with my dear friend, Matt Gaetz. Many of his attacks against Kevin McCarthy are comparisons to Paul Ryan. It’s quite ironic given Matt’s very first vote in Congress was for Paul Ryan as speaker. Even when we all knew Paul Ryan would never deliver the MAGA agenda,” she said. “We had full GOP control and President Trump, with pen in hand, ready to sign America First legislation. This Republican failure is why I ran for Congress. All that said, Matt Gaetz is one of my favorite members of Congress. America needs his talent and intelligence to work alongside Jim Jordan on investigations for the Judiciary Committee, not blow things up before we begin.”

She noted with a majority of 222 seats, Republicans need every vote to pass their legislation.

The fighting, she said, should be over that, and “what subpoenas and investigations we wage on our committees.”

On the other side was Gaetz, who wrote that McCarthy should not be the speaker.

“Every single Republican in Congress knows that Kevin does not actually believe anything. He has no ideology,” Gaetz wrote. “Some conservatives are using this fact to convince themselves that he is the right leader for the moment, as McCarthy is so weak he’ll promise anything to anyone.”

He cited McCarthy’s votes for a Ukraine aid package, the transfer of fighter jets, a no-fly zone in Syria and warned he even “bought into the Russia hoax.”

“This is who Kevin is. He sticks his wet finger in the air to decide what position to take,” Gaetz wrote.