On Tuesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC) reacted to the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), that he voted in favor of, along with all the Democrats who voted, by stating it’s “a sad day, unprecedented. We’re in very new territory here ousting the Speaker of the House for the first time in our country’s history.” And stated that there will be “chaos and confusion here on the House floor for the next short period here.”
Nickel said, “This was a sad day, unprecedented. We’re in very new territory here ousting the Speaker of the House for the first time in our country’s history. And now we’re figuring out what the next steps are. But what you saw was Democrats are united. And we’ve been united through this whole process and Republicans are in disarray, and that was my big takeaway today.”
Host Blake Burman then asked, “Is there any scenario that you could imagine, Congressman, at this point in time, in which you would vote for Kevin McCarthy?”
Nickel answered, “I think that there are a number of us in the center who would love to have conversations about having a centrist House where we passed things that have broad bipartisan support, immigration reform, border security, funding Ukraine. But there’s been no outreach and there’s been no attempt to try to form any of those coalitions from the Republican leadership to date.”
Burman then followed up on if there was any way Nickel would vote for McCarthy.
Nickel responded, “I think many of us certainly could, if leadership, if Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was involved in a conversation and thought that it was the best thing for making sure we move Democratic priorities through the House. But, right now, I think it’s very unlikely that we’re going to see any of that from our Republican colleagues, because they’ve had eight months to make that kind of outreach and make that kind of effort, and we just haven’t seen any of it.”
Nickel further stated that “we’re going to continue to see chaos and confusion here on the House floor for the next short period here.”
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