As many as five House Republicans reportedly are jockeying to become the next speaker, including Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio and Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., told Newsmax on Wednesday there are specific qualities he wants to see in the person who replaces Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who was ousted on Tuesday.
"We've got a great conference," Collins told "American Agenda." "We've got a lot of great people, and I know all those people very well. Got to know them real well over the past nine months.
"But I'll tell you what I'm looking for. I'm looking for someone who is an America first, someone who has a business sense."
Collins said he was elected in 2022 after campaigning on running the House like a business. He said that's why he wishes the House would have dealt with any issues about McCarthy until after it passed its 12 appropriation bills.
"It wasn't something that I thought that we needed to address at this time," Collins said. "I'm just a small businessman, and when we come up on a problem or incident, the first thing I always try to do is clean it up, and then afterward, we will assess who was at fault or just exactly what we need to address and not have that happen again.
"Unfortunately, it's just another week in Washington, where we came up on a Monday, voted on a Monday night for two post office names, and we've done nothing else. Y'all have paid us to be here all week, and we should be working on appropriations and we're not."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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