‘Democracy is Messy’: CNN’s Jake Tapper Defends Republicans Who Refuse to Vote for McCarthy

CNN’s Jake Tapper defended House Republicans who refuse to vote for Kevin McCarthy as Speaker as the California Republican was nominated for a sixth time in two days of voting.

McCarthy failed to receive the requisite number of votes to attain the gavel on Wednesday for a fifth time. Moments before Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) nominated him again just after 3 p.m. ET, Tapper defended 20 House Republicans who refuse to cast a vote for McCarthy.

During a panel discussion about the next vote, the host paraphrased Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) when said the chaos is a “feature” of a healthy democracy:

Let me just turn and just say I know to the viewers out there, this probably seems chaotic and insane, but, A: this is democracy. We can’t pretend this is – I mean, I think congressman Gallagher was right earlier today.

He said this is messy, and democracy is messy. It’s a feature, not a bug. That’s true. These people are exercising their right to do that, and a lot of them, I don’t know all of them, but a lot of the 20 rebels are voting the way they’re voting because they actually want substantive changes to the rules.

Gallagher defended the process playing out on the House floor earlier in the day when he nominated McCarthy for another round of voting to begin the day.

“I know people are getting frustrated,” Gallagher said. “Take a look at this chamber and realize how lucky we are to serve this country in Congress. How lucky we all are, Democrats and Republicans, to be citizens of the greatest country in the history of the world.”

Gallagher added, “Democracy is messy – democracy is messy, by design… That’s a feature, not a bug of our system.”

Watch above, via CNN.