October 12, 2023: Don’t count Steve Scalise out just yet

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

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🗓️ 12 October 2023

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise clinched the GOP’s nomination for speaker of the house Wednesday. But that doesn’t mean it’s a sure thing from here: Not long after, members of his own party began coming out of the woodwork to say they would not back the Louisiana congressman’s run for the gavel. Playbook co-author Rachael Bade explains why those in Scalise’s corner say there’s no reason to give up now, even when Scalise can only lose four Republican votes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Thursday, October 12th, and it's been a hell of a week.
0:10.1	Yesterday, House Republicans nominated a new speaker, only to see a group of Republicans balk and
0:15.8	threaten to deny that person the votes for the gavel. Surprise, surprise, and yes, it's feeling a little like
0:22.3	deja vu. Right now, the question on everyone's minds on Capitol Hill is whether speaker nominee
0:28.3	Steve Scalise is just Kevin McCarthy 2.0, a guy with a dream of holding the gavel, but going
0:34.7	nowhere fast. We write in Playbook this morning that it's pretty easy to see why a lot of folks are writing Scalise off right now.
0:41.6	I mean, there appear to be more than 10 Republicans publicly committed to voting for someone else other than him on the floor.
0:47.7	Remember, he's got to get 217 votes on the floor.
0:50.8	He can only afford four Republican defections.
0:56.9	Plus, in addition to those 10 or so that are publicly saying they won't back him, there are actually scores of other House Republicans who are
1:01.9	number one, angry that Scalises team killed a proposed rule to increase the threshold to win the
1:07.7	nomination in conference yesterday. And number two, they're incredibly
1:11.4	sour that their allies, Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan have either been ousted or come in second.
1:17.2	Jordan did not obviously beat Scalese yesterday. And I should say that Scalise's problems actually
1:21.3	don't stop there. The messenger reported last night that Team Trump is not intending to lift
1:26.3	a finger to help him rally support.
1:28.2	I've also heard that other members in GOP leadership with considerable influence are actually not
1:32.6	doing much to help him right now either. And the clock really isn't on Scalice's side. I mean,
1:38.4	if you think about it, Kevin McCarthy spent two months whipping votes to try to get the gavel
1:43.2	and actually years of laying the groundwork
1:45.6	to try to become speaker. Scalise was actually thrust into this moment with little heads up. I mean,
1:51.5	yes, he won the nomination conference yesterday, but almost 100 House Republicans actually backed
	...

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