Despite not receiving the votes he needs to become Speaker of the House after 11 ballots, Rep. Kevin McCarthy still isn’t giving up the fight.
“This is a new thought we’re going to have to have. We have a five-seat majority,” he vowed on Thursday. “So, it’s not one side is going to get more than another. It’s the entire conference that’s going to have to learn how to work together.”
“So it’s better that we go through this process right now, so we can achieve the things we want to achieve for the American public — what our commitment was,” McCarthy added. “So if this takes a little longer and it doesn’t meet your deadline, that’s okay. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. If we finish well, we’ll be very successful.”
There are 222 Republicans in the House and McCarthy needs to secure 218 votes in order to be elected as speaker, which he has failed to do.
On Thursday night, Rep. Ralph Norman (one of the Republicans holding out on McCarthy) reportedly stated that a deal had been reached.
“Norman says there’s an agreement in writing as he heads into Emmer’s office,” reported John Bresnahan of Punchbowl News. “He’s been asked to look at it.”
Last week, McCarthy appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” and revealed his first act if elected speaker is to repeal the provision for 87,000 IRS agents passed by Congress in 2022.
“[T]he first thing we have to do is elect our Speaker. We can’t do anything until we elect that Speaker,” McCarthy told Watters. “And if you watch, the White House is actually pushing back on our investigations, saying we’re not going to give you anything till you get this solved. So, we need to be able to move forward with that.”
“Then, on the very first day, the first thing we’re going to do is repeal the 87,000 IRS agents,” he continued. “Another reason why the Democrats are mad at me, I think – government should be here to help you, not to go after you, then we’re going to secure our border. You’ve got to secure this border, the millions of people coming across, the fentanyl that’s killing our children. We need to work on our economy. That means making us energy-independent.”
McCarthy added, “We need to hold this government accountable. Where’s the origin of COVID began? Find out what this Biden family had done in the process. Make sure the FBI is not going after Americans but actually going after crime. We’ve got so much work behind us, and we need to start on the very first day.”
If elected, the congressman also vowed to subpoena the 51 intel agents who signed a letter stating that the Hunter Biden laptop information was part of a Russian collusion.
