Ex-GOP Congressman Sounds Alarm For McCarthy on Fox News: I Don’t Know He ‘Can Do Anything Else’

Former Republican Congressman and Fox News contributor, Jason Chaffetz, sounded the alarm on Monday in regard to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) chances of becoming House speaker.

Chaffetz noted that it’s all but impossible to know how tomorrow’s voter for speaker will go, but argued “I don’t know that Kevin McCarthy can do anything else than he has” to win over the five GOP holdouts threatening to tank his bid.

Fox News anchor Rich Edson moderated the discussion on Monday between Chaffetz and Richard Fowler, a Democratic strategist, who is also a Fox News contributor.

“Jason, by the way, we’ve just gotten a heads up from our Capitol Hill team that McCarthy has left the speaker’s office. He was asked if he has the votes and he says, ‘Take away all the excitement’ and then he left. So that’s where we are right now in all of this. Jason, do you think that McCarthy has the votes and if not on the first ballot, can he get there?” Edson asked Chaffetz.

“Well, nobody really knows. I mean, just the announced people right now are problematic. And, you know, this is the way our founders set it up. You have to actually stand up and yell out that name,” Chaffetz replied, adding:

And I don’t know. I don’t know that Kevin McCarthy can do anything else than he has. He has done he helped raise the most amount of money. I think everybody would say we really like Kevin. But he has he has actually given in to most of every demand that these people have asked for. So I don’t know where it where it’s going to go.

Ultimately, these people answer not to Kevin McCarthy, not to the conference. They answer to their constituents. And that’s the problem and the rub. And I don’t know if he’s able to overcome that.

“So, Richard, how do Democrats play this? Do they just sit back and watch it happen?” Edson asked.

“Listen, I have to agree with Jason Chaffetz here, and he’s a former member and understands the House better than most folks that I know. And I think the truth of the matter is, there’s nothing more that Kevin McCarthy can do in this moment to get those five votes that he necessarily needs,” replied Fowler.

“I think for Representative Hakeem Jeffries, new leader of the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives, what we’re going to do in the moment is they’re going to sit back and they’re going to watch. Right. And they’re going to continue voting,” Fowler continued, adding:

There is this it’s a very, very faint possibility, but there will be 214 votes in for Hakeem Jeffries. Will that be enough? Will Kevin McCarthy both go below? We don’t have we have to wait to find out. But it’s very clear here that this is going to be a protracted battle that could last most of mostly all tomorrow, but it could last for days after that.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News