‘He’s the One That Started the Fire’: James Comer Rips Matt Gaetz’s Push For the Election of a New Speaker

House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-KY) hit out at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Thursday for starting “the fire” after Gaetz said it would be “Constitutional desecration” to not elect a new permanent speaker to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who he ousted earlier this month.

During an appearance on Newsmax’s The Balance, Comer reacted to Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-OH) continued struggle to secure enough votes for the speakership:

It’s very difficult for anyone to get to 217 on anything in this divided Republican conference. What happened when those eight joined, you know, with Matt Gaetz to vacate the chair, it created a problem, and you know it’s one thing to remove the speaker, but when you do that, you need to make sure you’ve got someone in place to replace the speaker, and we saw how hard it was to elect McCarthy the first time and, unfortunately, Jim Jordan’s going through the same ordeal now.

After Newsmax host Eric Bolling played a clip of Gaetz opposing the idea of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) remaining speaker pro tempore and arguing it would be “Constitutional desecration” to not elect a permanent speaker, Comer said:

Well, we need a duly elected speaker, I think the Constitution is clear about that. I don’t disagree with what Gaetz said, but he’s the one that started the fire and, you know, certainly my choices, I think it’s very public knowledge I want to see Jim Jordans get to be speaker, but the longer— the more votes we have where he comes up short, it’s certainly not promising.

So what Matt said, we need to find, move onto the next person to get 217, that’s the problem. It’s very difficult now for anyone to get t0 217. We were divided to begin this Congress and unfortunately we’re even more divided now you’ve got, you know, very conservative Republicans in the conference and you’ve got moderate Republicans in the conference. You’ve got guys like me that want to significantly reduce spending and you’ve got guys that really aren’t serious about reducing spending, so we’ve got a lot of issues internally, and unfortunately it’s been brought out to the public in a very public way in front of the American people.

Comer concluded, “I can’t express how much I want Jim Jordan to be speaker, but I fear we’re in for a long, drawn out journey.”

Watch above via Newsmax.