House Majority Leader Steve Scalise also stood up to support McCarthy during the debate on the motion to vacate, saying now isn’t the time to stop the progress House Republicans have made.
“When we go back to January, as many people have, we knew that it was going to be a narrow majority,” Scalise said. “We also knew it wasn’t going to be easy. How many of us came here because we thought this job was going to be easy?”
Scalise continued, “One thing we did know is that if we were going to finally start confronting the problems that had been ignored for years and years and years, we had to change the way this place worked. And one thing Speaker McCarthy embraced from Day 1 is to start making those kind of changes to this institution — opening up the process, allowing members to be more engaged, having amendments come to the floor, single-subject bills, doing appropriations bills.”
“Speaker McCarthy has been leading at the top of the level to make sure we have the tools to do our jobs,” he added.
Gaetz said earlier this week he’d support Scalise for speaker and believed other Republicans would, too, telling reporters he thinks “very highly” of the No. 2 House Republican.
