‘There Are Over 200 of Us’: House Republican Vows ‘We Are Not Rolling Over’ for ‘Selfish’ McCarthy Foes in Speaker Fight

The House GOP civil war showed little signs of detente as Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had a sixth failed vote to become Speaker, and the two Republican factions appear to be digging in their heels.

Rep.-elect Mike Lawler (R-NY) — all the House members remain “Representatives-elect” since they cannot be officially sworn into office until a Speaker is elected — was adamant on Fox News Wednesday afternoon that McCarthy would “ultimately” win the Speaker’s gavel.

Lawler blasted McCarthy’s GOP opponents as “aiding Joe Biden, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer” and preventing Republicans from “getting about the business we set out to do.”

“They have put their selfish agenda over the conference,” said Lawler, and “put themselves above everything else and are costing conservatives dearly.”

“They need to get serious, wake up, and realize that we are not rolling over,” Lawler declared. “There are over 200 of us who support Kevin Mccarthy, and we will support him on every single vote.”

“You say you are not rolling over,” said Fox News anchor John Roberts, but “the 20 who have voted against Kevin McCarthy say that they are not rolling over either, and so now we get to a point where who is going to blink first…what do you say to that?”

Lawler replied that “we live in a democracy, and generally speaking, majority rules,” and blasted his colleagues acting instead like it was a “dictatorship” and “their opinions are the only ones that should matter,” by rejecting McCarthy even though he had “negotiated in good faith,” including “over 20 rules changes,” but “that wasn’t good enough.”

“They couldn’t take yes for an answer, had to come back with more demands, more requests,” Lawler continued, attacking them for being “selfish” and “thwarting the will of the American people who demanded –demanded a split government, who wanted Republicans to be a check and balance on the Biden administration and on Chuck Schumer and the Senate.”

“We will not be held hostage, we are not going to roll over on this, and they can negotiate in good faith, as Kevin McCarthy and we have, to address their concerns or we’ll keep voting. That’s the bottom line here.”

Later in the segment, Sandra Smith asked the New York Republican if McCarthy would be in this position (at that point a failed fifth vote, soon to be six), if the GOP had won the House by a larger margin.

Lawler retorted that the GOP wouldn’t have even the slim majority they did have if not for “people like me” who managed to flip districts that Biden “carried by ten points.”

“I think it’s wrong for some of those folks who have contributed mightily to the harmful image that the Republican party has had in some of these swing states and districts to be lecturing anybody else,” Lawler added.

The House Republicans opposing McCarthy “continue to move the goal posts, refuse to take yes for an answer when it comes to so many of the demands that they have made, and they are not negotiating in good faith,” said Lawler, but McCarthy has.

“And that is why he has the overwhelming support of the conference,” he added. “And that is why none of us are going to back down in this fight.”

When Smith asked him how his first days in Washington were going, Lawler joked that it “makes Albany [New York’s state capital] look like beanbag, but it’s going well.”

Watch the video clips above, via Fox News.

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