House GOP Delays Vote on Next Speaker After Republicans Nominate Scalise Transcript

Our Republicans appear one step closer to electing a new House speaker, but we still don’t have any idea when a vote will take place on the House floor. During a closed door party meeting yesterday, Louisiana Congressman, Steve Scalise, defeated Ohio Congressman, Jim Jordan, for the GOP nomination to be speaker. And replace, of course, ousted speaker, Kevin McCarthy. But Republicans then delayed a House vote to try to confirm Scalise because he doesn’t have the 217 votes he needs to officially be elected. The New York Times is pointing out that several Republican lawmakers announced that they would not back Scalise on the House floor without concessions, complaining of a rushed process to choose a new speaker. And voicing skepticism that he could unite their conference. NBC News, and our informal counting, notes at least eight holdouts against Scalise, including Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Chip Roy of Texas, Max Miller of Ohio, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

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Congressman Ken Buck of Colorado meanwhile voted present during the nomination process yesterday. He said neither Scalise nor Jordan would clearly say if they believe the 2020 election was legitimate, something Buck insists the next speaker must do. As for when a vote on the House floor could finally take place, Democratic leadership tells NBC news they anticipate about an hour’s heads up from Republicans when they’re ready to vote. So who knows when that will be. Interim speaker, Patrick McHenry, said members could get as little as 15 minutes lead time. Lots of twists and turns ahead today, and potentially tomorrow, on Capitol Hill.

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Joining us now, Congressional reporter for The Hill, Mychael Schnell. Mychael, great to see you again. You’ve been doing such hard work for us this week. First of all, let’s go back to yesterday and walk us through how the nomination battle played out behind closed doors, Scalise and Jordan both whipping votes. It was seen as being very close for a while, but then Scalise emerged.

That’s exactly right, Jonathan. Going into that closed door meeting, there was no clear front-runner in this race. Both Scalise and Jordan had picked up a significant amount of endorsements. A number of lawmakers were withholding who they were going to vote for behind closed doors. But as you mentioned, eventually, Scalise came out victorious. But there was a key moment that happened before that vote on the speaker nominee. Essentially, what House Republicans did was they voted to kill a proposal to change the conference rules that would’ve increased the threshold needed for the speaker to win the nomination. So right now, and as it currently stands, it’s at least a majority of the conference. Some lawmakers wanted to increase that to 217 members, to make sure that they can avoid that public floor fight like we saw back in January. But that rule, ultimately, went down. Lawmakers voted to table it, which was seen as a win for Scalise.

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And then, minutes later, Scalise ended up winning the nomination from his conference, 113 to 99. A significant hurdle in this race to become speaker. But as you laid out, he does not have this thing locked up yet. House Republicans have been unable to go to the floor yet with Scalise’s nomination because he doesn’t yet have the votes to win the gavel on the House floor.

So, Mychael, what are your sources telling you as to when that might happen? When might we get this vote? And what is Scalise doing, and his team doing, right now to try to rally support?

Right now, it’s unclear. The House is set to reconvene today at noon, so that is the earliest that we can see a vote on House speaker. But right now, as it stands, I don’t think that we’re going to be seeing a vote that quickly. As you mentioned before, my vote tally is the same as you. I have at least eight Republicans who have said that they plan to support somebody else other than Steve Scalise. Six of those are supporting Jim Jordan. One is supporting Kevin McCarthy. And then a wild card we saw last night come out, Congressman George Santos says that he’s anybody but Scalise.

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So, look, if Scalise wants to lock this thing down… And I’ll note that those eight are aside from a number of lawmakers who have just outright said they’re undecided or have refused to say who they will support. So Scalise has a real uphill battle to be able to clinch the gavel on the House floor. What comes next? We’ll likely see a number of closed door meetings today between Scalise, some of his allies, and of course, some of those holdouts, to see if there’s anything that he can do, say, potentially give them to flip their vote on the House floor.

So walk us through the possible future here for Scalise? It feels McCarthy-esque, where he might face multiple rounds of voting. And, also, Mychael, clarify one thing for us. Once he is, or someone becomes speaker, is it still going to just be the same process that we had with McCarthy, where just one vote, one member, could trigger a process that could strip that speaker of his title?

Jonathan, it’s a little deja vu all over again as you laid out up there. Because this is exactly what we saw happen with Kevin McCarthy back in January. He struggled to lock up the votes after securing the nomination. He struggled to lock up the votes on the House floor. And it’s because of this extremely slim majority that Republicans have in the House. It’s only a single digit number, that majority. And I don’t give a number exactly because it depends on absences on the day, and that can change. But Republicans have a very slim majority, which means that, as the same was in January, if Steve Scalise wants to lock up the speakership on the House floor, House Republicans are going to have to be nearly unanimous to give him the gavel and for him to win. And in any scenario, it’s difficult sometimes to get Republicans on the same page, but especially when you’re dealing with this very slim margin.

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So when you talk about him locking up the speakership, it’s going to be difficult because of that slim majority. But then I think it’s likely that if Steve Scalise does eventually get the gavel after how many days, maybe weeks, it takes for him to negotiate over it, we will likely see Steve Scalise have some of these same legislative issues that Kevin McCarthy had, in terms of the right flank pushing him to the right Conservatives, digging in their heels on different legislative pushes. And maybe delaying and adding some drama to legislation in the House. Because, again, it all comes down to that extremely slim majority that House Republicans have in the chamber.

Yeah, and if this process goes on, and if the voting goes forth and he can’t gather the support, one might wonder if other candidates for speaker may emerge. Lots of drama ahead. Congressional Reporter for The Hill, Mychael Schnell, thank you as always for guiding us through it.