Rep. Kevin McCarthy has been meeting with his allies on Capitol Hill and his opponents have been meeting off campus this morning as House Republicans continue to try to chart a path forward.
“I think things are moving in the right direction” Rep. Dusty Johnson said leaving the McCarthy meeting. “Nothing’s going to come together quickly, but I think we’re clearly making progress.”
While he admitted that there is some “irritation” with the new round of concessions, he also acknowledged that it’s the way to “get to yes” with a five-vote majority and a diverse set of views within the conference.
“I mean, either we’re going to figure out how to work together in month one, or else we’re going to have to replay this Greek tragedy every single week” Johnson added.
GOP Rep. Pat Fallon, a McCarthy backer, told CNN that the entire conference should support their nominee for speaker, “otherwise, you get what? This. This dumb crap, which is chaos, and we don’t want that.”
“The longer it goes, it’s just not good for anybody,” he added.
GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who co-chairs the bipartisan problem solvers caucus, told reporters after meeting with McCarthy that he believes the House should not vote again for speaker until a new rules package is finalized and members have 72 hours to review it. He said he doesn’t believe the votes will change until the rules package is finalized.
“I don’t think it makes any sense to keep going and doing these round robins on the floor,” Fitzpatrick said, adding that he is worried about an emergency occurring before the House is organized, and reiterated that as a member of the Intelligence Committee, he can’t even get into meetings. “It’s a huge problem.”
CNN’s Morgan Rimmer and Manu Raju contributed reporting to this post.
