‘Tall order’ for GOP to rally around a single speaker: Rep. Good
- House Republicans voted to drop Rep. Jim Jordan as speaker nominee
- Rep. Good: Congress is failing the American people 'miserably'
- 'We will have to' identify someone as speaker, Rep. Good said
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(NewsNation) — With the House Republican conference voting to drop Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as its speaker nominee after a third defeat, the path toward electing a speaker is no clearer now than when Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was unexpectedly ousted from the position two weeks ago.
Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Good, who voted for Jordan and was one of the eight GOP House members who supported the ouster of McCarthy, joined “The Hill on NewsNation” to discuss his position.
“Congress has been failing miserably the American people,” Good said. “Failing miserably Republican voters who gave us the majority.”
Jordan was the only formal Republican candidate for the role but did not get enough votes to become speaker.
“It certainly is a tall order,” Good said of getting Americans to believe Republicans can rally around a single candidate for speaker.
“But for all of those who are fretting and wringing their hands and saying, ‘Oh, this is chaos, this is embarrassment. This is a clown show,'” he said. “I would say, ‘What is it that you’re concerned about that Congress isn’t continuing to do?'”
Good questioned why Americans were “in a hurry to get back to keep the status quo.”
“If you think about what we have done so far,” he said. “We have passed messaging bills under the former speaker that died in the Senate, had no chance to the Senate or the White House. We had two opportunities to try to effectuate change for the American people: the debt ceiling and the funding of the government. And in both cases, we passed Democrat bills with overwhelming Democrat support, the same things Democrats would have done if they had the majority and for which we did not need a Republican speaker or a majority.”
When asked if Republicans would be able to identify someone as speaker, Good said, “Well, we will, because we will have to.”
“We certainly should have done it with Jim Jordan,” he said. “You had 200 members supporting Jim Jordan. I don’t think there’s anyone else who could have gotten to 200 as quickly and as easily as he did.”
Watch the full interview with Rep. Good in the video player at the top of the page.
