6:41 p.m. ET, October 11, 2023
Nancy Mace pledges to vote for Jordan for a number of rounds “no less than initially”
From CNN’s Manu Raju and Haley Talbot
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace speaks to reporters on the Capitol on Wednesday, October 11, 2023.
Joe Raedle/Getty Pictures
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina instructed CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Wednesday that she is going to not vote for Speaker designee Steve Scalise on the ground and would as a substitute again Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio.
She later pledged in a separate interview with CNN to vote for Jordan “for a number of rounds” on the ground ought to Scalise lack the votes to safe the speaker’s gavel.
“I cannot transfer from that place, no less than initially,” Mace mentioned.
“I am speaking to completely different individuals in several camps and, you recognize, determining the place they’re. And that may be conservatives, that may be moderates, that may be Democrats, and determining what the subsequent steps is perhaps,” she instructed CNN.
Pressed if she may doubtlessly vote for Scalise down the road, Mace mentioned “not right now.”
“Given the district that I symbolize, I can not get behind someone that attended a White supremacist convention and in contrast himself to David Duke,” she mentioned, including that she simply realized about his feedback final evening. “I am making an attempt to reconcile it, and proper now I can not.”
Mace’s feedback are a reference Scalise going through intense blowback in 2014 for having given a speech in 2002 — earlier than he entered Congress — to a White supremacist group based by former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Scalise apologized and mentioned in a press release that talking to the group “was a mistake I remorse, and I emphatically oppose the divisive racial and non secular views teams like these maintain.”
Mace mentioned she let Scalise know of her opposition Wednesday afternoon however had not but heard again from him.
Earlier Wednesday, Home Republicans voted 113-99 behind closed doorways to pick Scalise over Jordan as their speaker nominee.
If all present members are current and voting on the ground, Scalise can solely stand to lose 4 Republican votes to assemble the 217 wanted to win the speaker’s gavel.
