'One Of The Swampier Things I've Seen': Chip Roy Pressed On Not Voting For Scalise As House Speaker
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) was asked about voting against Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) as the newest Speaker of the House.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 - Why do we want that?
00:01 - So why are you saying no to Steve's case?
00:07 - What's that?
00:08 - Why are you saying no to Steve's case?
00:11 - It's fairly well out there that I was open-minded,
00:15 wanted to unite as a conference.
00:17 I think the efforts that were undertaken
00:20 night before last and yesterday morning
00:22 to kill an effort that was done in good faith
00:25 across the ideology of the conference to unite
00:28 was one of the swampier things that I've seen done in a while
00:32 invoking K Street and coming in to
00:36 basically just kill an effort that was done in good faith.
00:41 I don't really know the pride of our office,
00:42 we could have struck the whole thing
00:43 and replaced it with a different approach.
00:45 But the approach was to avoid exactly where we are right now
00:47 which was eminently predictable.
00:50 Many of us who can do our own whip count
00:51 knew that the votes weren't there.
00:53 So let's figure this out.
00:54 And they tried to steamroll it
00:56 and that's not a good direction to go, so I'm not there.
00:58 - Are you dug in?
00:59 Are you a dug in, a hard no on this?
01:01 - Look, I'm approaching this the same way
01:03 when we were debating Kevin and other things.
01:05 Like, I'm never gonna just say, "I'm a never so-and-so."
01:09 You know, we're adults, let's go figure out how to lead.
01:11 But I'm not in a positive place right now
01:14 with respect to--
01:15 - Is there even a path forward for Scalise at this point?
01:19 - I think it's an uphill climb.
01:21 - Are you at all, what circumstances could change
01:24 that can make you eventually get to a yes
01:25 when it comes to Speaker Scalise?
01:28 - We gotta go inside this room as a group
01:30 and go figure out what we're gonna do.
01:32 - Should he drop out?
01:34 - We're blocking him out.
01:36 - Mr. Roy, do you think he should drop out?
01:38 Do you think he should drop out?
01:39 - That's up to him.
01:40 We're gonna go figure this out as a family.