House Republican Warns Anti-McCarthy Holdouts the GOP May Negotiate with Democrats: ‘We Have No Other Choice’

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said House Republicans may be open to negotiating with Democrats to get Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) elected speaker of the House.

His threat came after an eighth vote in failed to yield a speaker, who must receive a majority of votes cast. Some 20 Republicans have backed other candidates for the position, though the vast majority of the party’s 222 members have repeatedly voted for McCarthy. Democrats, meanwhile, have been voting unanimously for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

Since McCarthy only needs a majority of those voting, a handful of Democrats could simply decline to vote, thus lowering the threshold for a majority.

Appearing on Thursday’s America Reports on Fox News, Bacon warned that House Republicans may be nearing a point where they’re prepared to negotiate with Democrats to break the gridlock.

“This is what I am advocating and others are as well, not just me,” Bacon said. “If these 20 refuse to be part of the team and don’t come on board, we have no other choice but to go across the aisle and start negotiating. And there’s a lot of things you can negotiate.”

Bacon explained Republicans could offer Democrats a higher ratio of seats on House committees.

“Ordinarily you get like a four-seat majority in a tight House like this,” he explained. “Maybe we get it to a two-seat majority instead of four in all these committees. There may be things we can negotiate on subpoenas, there’s -– also on rules, like how to do motions to recommit. There’s a lot of things that we could look at to see if we could come up with a more bipartisan House. By the way, we need to do that.”

Anchor Sandra Smith asked how Republican constituents might react.

“How do you think the folks that put you all in power and flipped power in the House are gonna feel about that?” she inquired.

“Well, I think they should be mad,” replied Bacon, who represents a swing district. “But remember, it’s not me doing it. It’s not Kevin McCarthy doing it. It’s these 20 people that refuse to get on board. And really, it’s five to seven hardcore folks. I think we can get the rest on at some point. But there’s five or seven, but blame them. They are disabling the Republican majority the voters put in.”

Bacon also slammed holdouts for reportedly trying to leverage their votes into committee chairmanships.

“The rank and file Republicans, we don’t believe in affirmative action and quotas for anyone in the Republican House,” he said. “You gotta earn your spots and these folks don’t want to earn it. They want to demand it from Kevin McCarthy for their votes. It’s not right.”

After Bacon’s appearance, a ninth vote failed to yield a speaker.

Watch above via Fox News.