Ken Buck Warns Fox News That House GOP is On the Brink: If New Speaker Isn’t Elected Today ‘We Have Got A Mess’
Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram on Wednesday spoke to several GOP House members about their upcoming votes to nominate a candidate for House speaker and was met with a lot of pessimism.
“Right now they are going to vote by a secret ballot for the Republican conference selection for speaker of the House. I just spoke with one senior Republican who doesn’t think that anyone has the votes to win and they may sit in this meeting all day. Listen,” Pergram began.
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA) then said, “I don’t know that there’s going to be a speaker tomorrow morning. We’re going to find out. I think it’s 50/50 odds right now. We’ll have to see where this goes. Obviously, it’s a very thin majority.”
Pergram added, “The internal vote is expected to be razor close, but many members promise to support whoever wins behind closed doors on the floor, even if that was not their preferred candidate.”
“Centrist Republicans who represent battleground districts could be the key to this race. Jim Jordan faced an uphill climb with that group because of his ties to the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus. But Don Bacon of Nebraska says Jordan changed his tune,” Pergram noted before playing a clip from Bacon:
Because of his past. I think we expect to hear the Freedom Caucus message, it was not that tonight, I thought was very pragmatic and I thought convincing that he would do his best to represent everybody. And I thought something like they could work with the Democrats in the Senate. So I worked with the Democrat president. So I thought he did a great job.
“That said, some members are skeptical the House can resolve this quickly. It’s about the math. And even though someone may have the support of most Republicans, that does not mean they have the votes to win on the House floor,” Pergram added of the likely deadlock.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) is then shown saying, “Oh, Chad, I have a sense that it will not be a clean vote.”
“What’s the signal that this is a mess, as you alluded to? Is there something we should look for, something that happened in that?” Pergram presses Buck in the clip.
“Yes. I think at three or four in the afternoon, if you don’t see white smoke. We’ve got a mess,” Buck warned.
“Now here’s what has to happen. You have to win an outright majority of the entire House. There are 433 members of the House. The magic number would be 217 for all members voting for a candidate by name,” Pergram concluded.
Anchor Bret Baier then added, “Chad, thanks. I mean, in the midst of all of this, this is important because the house can’t really operate frozen until you get a speaker.” Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Steve Scalise (R-LA) are the two leading candidates to replace ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
Watch the full clip above via Fox News.
