It will likely be early next week before another vote for a House speaker, because of conference rules, but discussions will be held Friday about moving forward to get a speaker in office as soon as possible, Rep. Ben Cline said in an interview with Newsmax.
But, the Virginia Republican stressed on "Wake Up America," it won't be "just any speaker."
Cline commented that he's been a supporter of Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, for several years, and he supported his bid for speaker as well. But Jordan had dropped out of contention for the seat after an internal GOP vote picked Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., who dropped out of his nomination Thursday out of concerns there would not be enough votes to confirm him.
Jordan, Cline said, is a "very humble man" who supported Scalise earlier this week.
"He [Jordan] lost the vote earlier this week by only 10 votes, so if six votes had flipped, he would have been the nominee," said Cline. "There's that opportunity for him to step up and be the nominee.
"Hopefully, there won't be a lot of pettiness and vindictiveness on the part of my colleagues who just say no just because Steve Scalise did not get the votes."
He added that he's optimistic that Jordan "can be that uniter and bring the country together."
There is also talk that Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who is acting as the temporary speaker, could have his job powers extended, but "there are lot of people who don't think that's the road to go down," said Cline. "We can elect a new speaker quickly, and hopefully that will be Jim Jordan."
Most lawmakers, he added, "want to stay here as long as possible to get that speaker elected. We're willing to stay nights, weekends, whatever it takes to get our new speaker elected and continue that conservative legislative agenda that we've been pushing this year."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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