Charlie Kirk attacks “petty” and “juvenile” Republicans who opposed Jim Jordan in the first round of the speaker vote
Kirk: “That is worse than I thought it would be”
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From the October 17, 2023, edition of Salem's The Charlie Kirk Show
CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): Our list was close. We have some work to do. So far 12 no votes for Jim Jordan. Ken Buck, we're not sure how he voted. Don Bacon voted for McCarthy. Chavez-DeRemer voted for McCarthy. D'Esposito voted for Zeldin. Yeah, that really helps. Díaz-Balart voted for Scalise. Ellzey voted for Mike Garcia. Garbarino voted for Zeldin. This is all over the place. Giménez voted for McCarthy. Gonzales voted for Scalise. Granger voted for Scalise. These people aren't even running and they're voting for them. Kelly voted for Scalise. Kiggans voted for McCarthy and LaLota voted for Zeldin.
That’s so far. It'll probably actually end up closer to – they're already, yeah, probably about 20. So Jordan has a lot of work to do. That is worse than I thought it would be. And so you need some majority of 217, right? A combination of no votes and absents, the math changes. So you need 217 essentially to be able to become Speaker of the House, out of 218 total. So that's, it's continuing as it is.
So we have the picture-in-picture here. It's gonna go to another round of voting. These moderates are just trying to get it out of their system, I guess. No, what's going on here is these moderates have come together and they're basically like we are so upset at the conservatives. We're so upset about what they made us go through in January. We're so upset what happened with motion to vacate. They want to try and inflict hell on the rest of the conference. That's what's going on here. It's petty, it's baseless, it's not about governing, it's not principled. It's basically a venting coalition and they're in big disconnect with their voters.
So let me tell you what's different about what's happening in January – happened in January versus now. In January, the voters were largely with these members like Roy and Luna and Donalds and Biggs and Crane that were holding the line to try to get reforms for the House speaker. There are not voters right now, even in the moderate camp, moderate voters that are like, you know what? I really want Congressman Gonzales to go vote for Scalise. No, this is petty. It is incredibly juvenile, what they're doing to be perfectly honest.
You have a potentially great speaker, but for them, they do not want a great conservative speaker. They want someone that is going to keep business as usual. They want clean CRs, they do not want 12 individual spending bills. They don't want to touch the border. If they want anything, they want amnesty. They want unlimited amounts of funding to Ukraine, they want a new building for the FBI. So someone like Jim Jordan frightens them. And for those of you that are skeptical about Jim Jordan, the fact that he is receiving this kind of establishment resistance should actually strengthen your resolve to help get Jim Jordan across the finish line. That this kind of Republican uniparty resistance should show you that Jim Jordan is actually going to be a far improvement beyond what we've seen before.