2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley called on House Republicans to “get it together” and stand unified behind a speaker candidate as the lower chamber enters its second week without a speaker.
“They need to get in a room and figure out who this is going to be and come out unified. That’s what Republicans need to do,” Haley said in an interview on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
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Haley said the lack of a speaker is “not a good look” in the wake of eight Republicans voting with all Democrats to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker. Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is presiding over the chamber currently, and the GOP selected Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to be their nominee for speaker on Friday.
Jordan is the second Republican to secure the nomination after Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) withdrew from the race following hours of meetings. Neither Scalise nor Jordan received 217 votes in the nomination process, making the path to securing the speaker’s gavel an uphill battle.
As Jordan is struggling to receive the votes necessary to win the speaker’s gavel, Haley said the U.S. looks even less capable of handling its affairs at home and abroad, including the recent war between Israel and Hamas.
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“This is not good for our country,” Haley said. “We saw what happened to Israel when they were distracted — America looks so distracted right now. When America is distracted, the world is less safe.”
“We can’t sit there and act like this is Sept. 10,” Haley added, pointing to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “We better get it together and remember what it felt like Sept. 12 because we’ve got a lot of threats around us and a lot of chaos around us, and we need some strength. We need some stability.”
