Republicans face unclear choice for new House speaker after ouster of McCarthy

Read the Full Transcript

• Geoff Bennett:

  Two candidates are entering the Republican race to be the next speaker of the House. And the first votes could be cast one week from today.

  But it's unclear how long it will take to find a successor to Kevin McCarthy.

• Amna Nawaz:

  The ousted former speaker didn't assume the role until four days into the legislative session earlier this year and only after 15 rounds of voting by representatives.

  Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins is here to update us, as history once again unfolds on Capitol Hill.

  Busy days for you, Lisa. Thanks for being here.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Hi.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, it's only been a day since Speaker McCarthy was ousted.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Right.

• Amna Nawaz:

  There's a new speaker race under way.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes.

• Amna Nawaz:

  How is that shaping up?

  You might wonder, why would anyone want to be speaker after what happened yesterday? But this job does not come open often. Only five people have served in this role this century. And, indeed, we have three names that are really at the top of the list tonight. First two have announced, Steve Scalise, the current number two Republican in the House, and Jim Jordan, well-known as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

  The other name, you may be less familiar with. That's Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. He does head a very large Republican Study Committee, but he's only been in Congress for three terms. He is pitching himself as someone outside of leadership.

  Now, here's what he said last night about why he's considering joining the race.

• Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK):

  Well, certainly I didn't volunteer to do this. It's not something I came in Washington, D.C., to do.

  But when you have people asking you about taking a different direction than what we have done historically in this Congress, and then we're doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, where leadership just keeps ascending through the ranks, and people have asked me about looking at an alternate choice.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Jordan and Scalise alone is sort of a battle royal, some of the most respected and really deepest relationships in the House Republican Conference between those two.

  But this isn't just about those people, Amna. This is also about the rules, because there will — there are some moderates who say, we can't go through this again. We have to change the rules. There are some who say no. What these men who are running want to say about that will matter, and we will find that out next Tuesday, when they will speak to their conference.

  The soonest we could have a new speaker nominated is next Wednesday, votes on the floor. This will have a major impact on things, including Ukraine, Jordan and Scalise so far not saying they would support more money for Ukraine.

• Amna Nawaz:

  In the meantime, Lisa, there's no full-time speaker of the House. There's an acting speaker.

  How does that impact the actual work of the House?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Let's talk about that.

  The acting speaker, president — speaker pro tem, is Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. There he is right there. He has said he's not interested in being speaker permanently.

  Now, what's interesting here is that there are some things he cannot do, because he was appointed and not elected as speaker pro tem. There is generally a theory, and it hasn't been tested. We have never done this before. But most people believe that no bills can move on the House floor until there is an elected speaker.

  But there's general confusion. I want to play a conversation last night I had with two members of Congress you will see, Ralph Norman and, behind him, Derrick Van Orden, as they themselves couldn't figure out what the speaker can do.

• Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC):

  McHenry can keep the process going, from my understanding.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  The committees.

• Rep. Ralph Norman:

  The committees can do their work.

  (Crosstalk)

• Rep. Ralph Norman:

  The reports can come out.

  (Crosstalk)

• Lisa Desjardins:

  But you can't do anything with it on the floor again and get it passed out?

• Rep. Ralph Norman:

  Well, he's an acting speaker. No, he's been designated by McCarthy to be the acting speaker.

• Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI):

  The answer is no. We can't do any business on the — that's just wrong, man. We can't do any business on the floor until a speaker is voted in.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  I think that speaks for itself. There's a lot of confusion, but right now the House is essentially paralyzed.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Lisa, what about former Speaker McCarthy himself? We know it's a long-gained ambition of his to hold the speakership. What about his future?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Right.

  He told us last night that he has not decided whether he will resign from Congress, as we saw happen with John Boehner, who left the speakership before him. He's making that decision now, and he also may endorse someone, he said, for speaker.

  But when asked about what happened yesterday, when asked about the substance of the claims that Matt Gaetz and others are making against him, saying that he was someone they couldn't trust, someone who betrayed Republicans, Speaker McCarthy, former Speaker McCarthy, I should say, of course, said, no, there was no substance. Here's how he put it.

• Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA):

  You know it was personal. It had nothing to do about spending. It had nothing to do about — everything he accused somebody of, he was doing. It all was about getting attention from you.

  I mean, we're getting e-mail fund-raisers from him as he's doing it. Join in quickly. That's not governing.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  That's just one example of how emotional it was yesterday. And those feelings are still very president for Republicans.

• Amna Nawaz:

  So, when you step back for a second, Mr. McCarthy is now one of the shortest-serving speakers in history.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol, you have Mitch McConnell, one of the longest-serving Republican leaders in history. Why is there such a difference between Republicans in the two chambers right now?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes, I want to credit one of our great colleagues, Stephanie Kotuby, for raising this idea as well.

  And it's a good point. The Senate is designed, as George Washington put it, to be cooling, a factor, versus the House, which moves more hot. But there's something different about modern politics. We're seeing gerrymandering, making districts more partisan. We're seeing more people rewarded for going to the ends and extremes, especially in the Republican Party.

  I think that's what's happening here. And the House is also a place where there is more support of former President Donald Trump, more vocal support, deeper support. As we know, and I talked about it last night, he's campaigned on disrupting institutions.

  I don't think it's a coincidence that we have seen the institution of the House disrupted more than it ever has been before.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Disruption is an understatement, I think.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Unprecedented times.

  Lisa Desjardins, covering it all, thank you.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You're welcome.

• Geoff Bennett:

  With the future of the House Republican Conference in limbo, we turn to Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis of New York.

  Thank you for being with us.

• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY):

  Thank you. It's great to be with you.

• Geoff Bennett:

  You opposed the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker. Why?

• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis:

  Well, I think Kevin was doing a good job.

  We were pushing forward our priorities, energy independence, Border Security Act. Both of those bills have been passed and put on Chuck Schumer's desk. We were also making sure that we avoided a debt default, that we were able to avoid a shutdown. We saved trillions of dollars for the American taxpayer during that default deal that occurred earlier this year.

  People have to recognize that we are one-third of the federal government. We still have to work with the Senate and the White House to get things done. But where he could control things in making the chamber run smoother, giving us enough time to read legislation, so the days of having to pass bills to know what are in them were over, we felt like we were getting real good government reforms under Speaker McCarthy.

  And I felt that it was unfair to have him removed simply because he put a bill the other day that prevented a shutdown on the floor and it happened to pass with bipartisan support.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Looking forward, at least two Republicans now say they are vying for the speakership. That's Congressman Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan.

  In your view, could either of them win the 218 votes needed to become House speaker?

• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis:

  Yes, I think it's possible that either one may very well be the next speaker. I think both are very well-liked within the conference.

  They're both very effective communicators. And so I think it's a chance it could be one of those two, or there could be a dark horse that comes and can also get elected. The key is to see who will unite us, who will bring us together, so we can move forward.

  We need to recognize that we need to stick together if we are going to get border security, if we are going to be able to cut excessive wasteful spending. We had a plan in place on how we were going to move forward, with just 40 days left to fund the government, of how we were going to work this to get the things that we wanted, that the American people want in this appropriations process.

  And, unfortunately, we lost significant amount of leverage yesterday when Matt Gaetz chose to side with the Democrats to overthrow our speaker which 97 percent of our conference supports.

• Geoff Bennett:

  How will any future Republican speaker have an easier time than Kevin McCarthy did in leading, in trying to manage this fractious House caucus, when you have a handful of Republicans who say they're not focused and not really interested in the kind of compromise that you're talking about?

• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis:

  Yes, there are those certainly who are here to govern. I include myself in that group.

  And then there are those who are here who want to play charades. And, unfortunately, those individuals are not serious about the give-and-take and compromise that is needed for a Republican House that is outnumbered 2-1 by the Democrats in the Senate and the White House.

  So we have to find a way to move forward. This is going to be the real test. If it was truly personal with Kevin McCarthy, which is what many people say, then perhaps we could still find a path forward with another speaker.

  But if these group — this group is going to continue to hold the rest of the conference and the Congress hostage as we try to do the work of the American people, I think it's going to be very difficult.

• Geoff Bennett:

  In order to become House speaker over the course of those historic 15 ballots, Kevin McCarthy made multiple concessions to the right-wingers that effectively drained his power, including this agreement that any one member could call a vote to unseat him.

  Will those rules change with the next speaker?

• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis:

  Well, I'm talking with many of my colleagues. They want to see the rules change. They believe that it should be at least half of the conference has to be dissatisfied for a motion to vacate.

  Kevin McCarthy, as I said, worked very diligently to empower the membership to make sure that we were seeing the good government reforms on the floor that we wanted, because we were tired of the way that Nancy Pelosi ran the chamber. And it was to, sadly, his own detriment, because he did agree to that motion of vacate by one individual.

  And when this one individual sided with just a handful of Republicans and all the Democrats, including the socialist Squad, against our own conference, that was an unfortunate circumstance, something that should have never happened, particularly at this pressing time, when we have so much work to do to pass the remaining appropriation bills.

  Remember, the House has passed four out of the 12 funding bills. The Senate has done zero. And so this all needs to be resolved within the next 40 days. That's a lot of work, considering we have lost now the next two weeks. This week, we were sent home. And, next week, we're going to be electing a speaker.

  And who knows — until we elect a speaker, we can't bring any bills to the floor.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Is there any semblance of a plan to avoid a government shutdown right now? And what's the future of Ukraine funding?

  At least one of the men vying for the speakership, Jim Jordan, says that that's now a thing of the past.

• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis:

  Well, I think it probably is going to be a harder path for the Senate to push down any type of Ukraine funding.

  I think, originally, there was no side deal, like Matt Gaetz said. The speaker reaffirmed that to us yesterday. But he had said to the conference that, look, we really want to secure our border. That's the House's number one ask. The Senate's number one ask is not anything for America. It's actually the fund Ukraine.

  So the question is, maybe, down the line, the negotiation would be, undo the president — undo President Biden's executive orders that created this migrant crisis that's hurting cities like mine. And maybe there would be a trade in that type of negotiation setting.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Lastly, Congresswoman, what message does this infighting among House Republicans send to the country in this election year about whether House Republicans can govern and whether they themselves are governable?

• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis:

  Well, this is the challenge with any slim majority, right?

  If any three or four or five people decide that they want to create chaos, they can do so. So, only two things can happen here. I think we need to get a larger majority, so it's a governing majority, and no small group can take us as hostages. Or we have to see maybe some bipartisanship.

  But I doubt that, considering that the Democrats joined the far right here to do this to us. So, I feel that Matt Gaetz is certainly not representative of the conference. In fact, I believe that most people in the conference would like to see him out of the conference.

  He certainly is not representative, I think, of the Republican values, the fact that he would cut this deal with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the others to overthrow our speaker. I think that they need to look at what the Republicans are fighting for, right? The things that we're fighting for, we want a secure border, we want to make sure we stop this inflationary spending, which we have.

  There's been no more massive spending bills since we have taken power of the House. We want energy independence. We want parents bill of rights. We have pushed all this stuff over to the Senate. Schumer chooses not to do it.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, thanks for your time this evening.

• Rep. Nicole Malliotakis:

  Thank you.