The Republican Party, and by extension America, is still reeling from Representative Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) ouster as Speaker of the House. Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL) went on America's Newsroom to give his own take, especially on why he voted to retain McCarthy.
While Rep. Donalds admitted "a lot of things did not happen well under McCarthy," he did not vote to remove him because "we were going through the appropriations process. It was late. It was not perfect. We were trying to be conservative with our spending bills. I wanted to cut a lot more. But at the end of the day, we should have finished with our work."
However, with no Speaker in the chair, the intention of completing the appropriations bills "is now going to get tossed out the window."
Nevertheless, Rep. Donalds said House Republicans must elect a new leader, "and then we have got to get back to work."
Host Bill Hemmer pointed out that Congress was in recess for much of August, asking if it would have made a difference if they stayed behind to work instead.
Donalds said the critique was "fair," but an additional issue prior to the recess was that "there was an impasse on how much we wanted to spend. Members were communicating that to the leadership team, and it really just did not get anywhere fast. So it is frankly a failure on all sides."
Hemmer then asked if former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) changed the original rule requiring a majority of the caucus to vacate the chair, "and Speaker McCarthy negotiated in good faith with people like [Representative] Matt Gaetz to change that back to one member of the caucus. When you are facing a four-vote majority, you are always on tenterhooks, are you not?"
Moreover, he also asked if Donalds respected Gaetz's decision to remove McCarthy.
"No, I do not. I actually disagreed with it. And I told Matt that I didn't agree with this. We should not be doing this. We should be focused on funding the government, working through our appropriations bills, and securing the nation's border. That is what we should be focused on," Donalds concluded.
