Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said the current stalemate over House speaker is an indication that the Republican Party is different from the Democrat Party, while voicing support for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to be the next speaker.
“The Republican Party is a big tent party, we got a number of different groups, that number of different factions if you will, within our party,” Carter told NTD’s “Capitol Report” on Jan. 4, shortly after the sixth round of voting, which saw McCarthy failing to secure the required 218 votes to clinch the top House job.
“We can only look at what the Democrats did over the past two years,” he added. “They were overtaken by the far-left wing of their party and they just caved without even batting an eye, and it resulted in some of the worst policies that this country has ever experienced over the last two years.”
Carter said there had been frustrations for both supporters and opponents of McCarthy, but negotiations “are ongoing.” Nevertheless, Carter expressed confidence that the Republican Party will come together, finding a path to elect McCarthy, who the Georgia lawmaker said was someone best prepared for the position.
“We will get this worked out. But we don’t need to follow the path that the Democrats followed,” Carter said. “We’re going to represent the American people. We’re going to represent that big tent that is our party.”
House lawmakers began the process of choosing a new speaker on Tuesday, with McCarthy falling 15 votes short of 218 in the first vote. All 19 Republicans who didn’t vote for McCarthy in the first ballot shifted their votes to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on the second ballot. Finally, McCarthy lost one additional Republican vote on the third ballot, when Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) chose to vote for Jordan.
Before the voting process began on Wednesday, former President Donald Trump announced his support for McCarthy to become speaker, saying the California lawmaker “will do a good job, and maybe even a GREAT JOB.”
By Frank Fang and Steve Lance
