Last week’s Speaker vote in the US House was historic. It took 15 rounds of voting and many behind-the-scenes and on-camera negotiations but finally, Rep. Kevin McCarthy was voted Speaker early Saturday morning.
Liz Harrington, Spokesperson for President Trump, joined the Joe Hoft Show on Tuesday and discussed last week’s historic vote for the Speaker of the House.
Liz shared many insights and personal accounts as well as her perceptions of President Trump’s reaction to it, concerns, and relief at the end of it all. President Trump ultimately gained an appreciation for all of those involved.
Here are some excerpts of Harrington’s interview starting at the 17:20 mark in the audio below. She started off by discussing the historic Speaker votes last week:
It was long, but I think really exciting. I think it was good for the country. And I think as President Trump was watching it play out, he really was looking at it and said whatever happens it’s going to be better for the country…
I think the drawn-out speaker fight, getting those concessions, those 20 Freedom Caucus Representatives holding firm on their demands, getting those concessions, and now you see Kevin McCarthy so far has followed through on several of these big-ticket items with the rules package, with now kicking off Schiff, Omar and Eric Swalwell from their committees. I think those are important steps and hopefully, we’ll see what happens, but hopefully the country will be stronger because of their fight…last week…
After a short break, Harrington shared:
It was incredible. It was actually how politics is supposed to be…It’s supposed to be impactful with debates, not just back room deal cutting…These are important issues and it’s important, and I think for the American people to tune in and see. And I know not everyone was ultimately happy with the outcome but the fact that they did have this debate and showed how important these issues are and that they are willing to actually grind the government to a halt to make it known that these issues are important and we’re not goint to just let them go by the wayside, I think was very powerful and something that was so refreshing that we really haven’t seen.
So much of politics that I think President Trump has exposed, is just theater and not real and all for show. And that’s what’s killing this country. It’s all just these back room deals … President Trump was helping negotiate in these talks too because ultimately he wanted a united Republican Party that actually does something real and hopefully that’s what we get out of this…
In response to the initial vote where 19 GOP Reps voted against McCarthy, Harrington shares:
I think it was kind of a wakeup call to the Washington establishment that it wasn’t going to just be a handful of people… I was shocked…It really started this whole process that you really didn’t know where this was going to end up…
Behind the scenes there was just a lot of real negotiation going on which I think was important and they were playing it out in the public which I think is more important…
I think President Trump as the process played out, I think going into it he really was looking at it, ‘what’s the alternative’? He didn’t see a real viable alternative than Kevin McCarthy. And he did see some downsides to a negotiation like this because these are swamp creatures, you got a lot of bad actors, you don’t really know what they’re willing to do and also who we would end up with, could it be worse?
And I think that was his biggest drawback going into it and I think as it drawn out and as he was talking to these members he saw there’s a real opportunity to get something better for the American poeple, to be more united and to get something more conservative.
And I think his respect for the 20 really did grow…and he agrees with them on so many issues. These are MAGA patriots absolutely.
Listen to the entire interview below: