Thursday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) said he expected Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would “close the deal” in his bid for Speaker of the House.
Donalds criticized how outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) handled business in the House of Representatives and said he hoped to see a speaker who would allow Congress to function as a “bottom-up process.”
“I don’t really get too much into that,” Donalds said. “That’s all, you know, that’s puff talk. At the end of the day, Republicans are going to get together. We’re going to pick a speaker. The leader in the clubhouse is Kevin McCarthy. Make no mistakes about that. He’s the leader in the clubhouse, but you got to close that deal. I do not believe that there are Republicans in our conference, whether they’re moderate Republicans or conservative Republicans, that are going to cede power to the Democrats.”
“The other thing to keep note of. Last Congress, Nancy Pelosi was down 32 votes before the speaker vote was taken, and she closed that deal,” he continued. “I anticipate Kevin McCarthy is going to close the deal. But for Republicans to say that we’re going to give power to the Democrats, that’s just not going to happen. I don’t see that happening at all.”
“So, are you voting for Kevin McCarthy, or do you have another candidate?” fill-in host Katie Pavlich said.
“No, I’m going to vote for him,” Donalds replied. “But at the same time, what I want to see is a speaker who lets the members actually work, run — run bills, work with the appropriating committees and the — and the committee chairs to have a bottom-up process. That is the way Congress should be functioning and should work.”
“What I witnessed my first two years in Congress was Nancy Pelosi pushed every bill out of her office,” he added. “It wound up on the floor. The members were called in to vote yes or no. That is not legislating. That is not the way the people’s house is supposed to work. They can do whatever they want in the Senate, but the House of Representatives is the people’s body, and it needs to operate accordingly.”
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