Former Rep. Peter King, commenting on Newsmax during the first ballot for House Speaker on Tuesday, said he hopes members of their party will be able to put aside differences and come together behind House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who lost in the first round ballot by 19 votes.
King, a former New York Republican lawmaker, also said on "John Bachman Now" that he expects there will be "some kind of retribution" in play after the pushback against McCarthy, R-Calif., but he hopes that can be put aside.
"We keep hearing who's against Kevin McCarthy, but over 90% of the Republicans are for him," said King. "It's wrong to allow a small group to determine, the tail wagging the dog here, and that just doesn't add up. So I would hope that these people have made their point on the first ballot and then they'll come around and find some reason to endorse Kevin McCarthy, and we get this behind us."
King noted that every day there is no speaker, it marks another day when committees can't perform and investigations can't begin.
"We are like the gang that can't shoot straight while Democrats are all lined up behind Hakeem Jeffries," King said, referring to the New York Democrat getting the votes for speaker from House Democrats during the first balloting.
But even while there is the appearance of Republicans going in different directions, "90 or 95% are actually going for Kevin McCarthy," King said.
King said he can't think of a motive to oppose McCarthy.
"I try not to ascribe motives to people but to me, a lot of it is maybe to somehow get attention for yourself back home to build up a contributor list," said King. "I could probably give you any number of reasons I would disagree with Kevin McCarthy, but the fact is on an overwhelming number of issues I agree with him."
But as a leader, it would be up to McCarthy to compromise and to get as much unity as possible, "and so under those situations, no one is going to get everything they're looking for," King said.
"You can pinpoint notes, this went wrong, that went wrong, whatever, but the fact is on the overwhelming number of issues and in the overwhelming results, that we became the majority party on Kevin McCarthy's leadership," said King. "He's the one who is best to get the job done to unify the party as much as it can be unified to deal with the Democrats and deal with the president and try to get the job done for the American people."
King further noted that in the past, there have been some people who became speakers, such as John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, and Paul Ryan, who had some opposition, but in the end, their parties "realized the greater good."
Only once in 150 years has there not been a majority party speaker, King added, and said that not only should Congress be "bound by rules, but we should be bound by tradition."
"The tradition is that the majority party unites behind the speaker, not just when you go to the Republican Party, but they go to the country," said King. "Everyone's going to suffer if there's no speaker. This is a constitutional office as the president, the vice president, and the speaker of the House.
"They are the constitutional offices and we are denying that process for some selfish reason for a handful of people really wrong. I would say the same even if I was supposed to Kevin McCarthy. Once you have the vote within the party conference if you abide by the majority unless there's some overriding moral of policy issue, which we don't have here."
But Democrats, with Pelosi, "were able to have a better view of the big picture," said King. "They knew that they had to stop Republican policies and whatever individual differences they had, they would put that aside for their goal of stopping the Republican Party and our policies."
And King said House Republicans, who stand for strong principles, "should get behind the leader who can espouse those principles and put them into practice."
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