House Republican: “If Gaetz and co. won’t vote for McCarthy, I’ll work with Democrats”
As Republicans in congress continue to be in a state of complete disarray, Rep. Don Bacon (R. NE) sent out a warning shot to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R. FL) and other MAGA influenced opponents of Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R. CA) and his bid for the Speaker of the House position, saying that he is prepared to work with Democrats if they cannot come to a compromise.
Bacon wrote an op-ed in the The Daily Caller, arguing that Gaetz and his four fellow “McCarthy deniers” were doing grave harm to the slim majority in the House of Representatives that the GOP just won and he would have no choice but to seek help from Democrats to build a functional congressional majority:
“Much has been made of me saying I would work with moderate Democrats to elect a more moderate speaker. But my actual words were that if the five refused to coalesce around what the vast majority of the conference wants, I’m willing to work across the aisle to find an agreeable Republican. We cannot be held captive by a small number and run the risk of delaying the formation of committees and working on the agenda we promised Americans this past November.”
via Twitter
McCarthy has aleady given into multiple demands from Gaetz and the like, but none of them have shown any willingness to vote for him thus far and have insisted that the party pick a new leader.
Bacon also praised McCarthy’s leadership:
“He has done more than anyone to help regain the majority for the GOP. He visited every GOP-held district and raised a record amount for the Congressional Leadership Fund.
Further, he has been superb at trying to include all the various factions in the Conference, to include the Freedom Caucus.
Every member of Conference had a chance to challenge Kevin and make their case. Once the Conference votes overwhelmingly for the speaker, as it did for McCarthy, it is right for all the members to coalesce and support the team.”
Kevin McCarthy, via Flickr / Gage Skidmore https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
Bacon urged conservatives in the House to direct their frustrations at the small minority of “Never McCarthy” Republicans who he claims are putting the entire party’s agenda at risk:
“My point is that if a few won’t be part of the 218 members we need to govern, we’ll then find other ways to get to 218!”
