Republican Defends Speakership Chaos: 'It's the Good Part'

One House Republican defended his party's inability to unite behind a single member for the next Speaker of the House, calling it "the good part" of the GOP.

Representative Tom Tiffany backed the disagreement between his colleagues on Thursday when he was asked by Fox News why Republicans couldn't come together in the same way that Democrats have on a Speaker candidate.

"Yeah, cause they act in lockstep," Tiffany said of his Democratic counterparts. "We are independent thinkers in the Republican Party and that's the good part about our party."

The House entered its 15th day without a speaker after Representative Jim Jordan failed to win the gavel on Wednesday for the second time in two days. Jordan received 200 votes on the first ballot and 199 on the second as dozens of Republicans refused to back the Trump ally for the speakership. On both votes, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries received all 212 Democratic votes. A member of Congress in any party would need 217 votes to win the gavel.

Newsweek reached out to Jeffries via email for comment.

Tiffany's defense of his Republican colleagues comes as other House Republicans have publicly criticized their own party for the chaos that has ensued in the chamber since former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by eight members of his conference earlier this month.

Representative Mike Lawler, who backed McCarthy for speaker in both rounds of voting this week, called for consensus on Wednesday, telling the Times Union that the only way for Republicans to maintain the majority in the House is to find a speaker who moderates and far-right members of the GOP can rally behind.

"Right now, there's no consensus. I have said to Jim directly: If you want to build consensus, you have to bring together the folks who are in these swing districts and who have been frustrated by what has gone on the last 10 months and the folks who have worked against the interests of the conference. But in the absence of that, I don't see how you get consensus here," Lawler said.

But Jordan has long held a reputation of being a fighter who will push forward until he achieves his goal on his terms.

"Jim wasn't known for consensus-building and legislation-passing," former Republican state Representative Derrick Seaver, who took Jordan's role in the Ohio House of Representatives in 2000, told the New York Times. "He wasn't known as a collaborator. He was going to push his belief system, first and foremost."

Jordan's holdouts, however, may be too much for him to push back on. While Tiffany seemed optimistic that the GOP would eventually elect a speaker before moving on to "do good things for the American people [that] representing the true interests of the American people," new reports say that Jordan will not hold a third vote. Instead, he'll support interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry in holding the post until January 3.

Tiffany has expressed his disapproval of empowering McHenry with full gavel powers.

"All this talk of empowering a temporary House Speaker is Swamp talk," the Wisconsin Republican wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday. "My constituents sent me to Washington to change the status quo. We shouldn't kick the can down the road. We should elect Speaker Jim Jordan."

"We should go as many rounds as it takes to elect Speaker Jordan," Tiffany said Monday.