Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said ahead of Friday’s precarious House speaker vote that Republicans are entering the “‘find out’ phase” after claiming they’d received a sweeping “mandate” from voters in November.
Crockett said Democrats don’t plan to help them sort it out.
“Listen, they have gone around, they have talked about how there is a mandate, and that this country issued a mandate for the Republicans to run something,” she told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Thursday. “Well, the country about to find out. We are in the ‘find out’ phase.”
“So go ahead and run whatever y’all gonna run,” she continued, “but listen, if it’s all about y’all, if you don’t believe in bipartisanship and you have a ‘Trump trifecta,’ then y’all work this out amongst yourselves. We’re going to sit on the sidelines and eat our popcorn.”
In a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, Crockett wrote: “Welcome to the 119th! America, y’all seriously voted for this clown show to continue?!”
She offered a flashback to this time in 2023, when it took former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) 15 rounds to get the speaker’s gavel. He was ousted from his leadership post later that year, leading to a three-week civil war among Republicans until they ultimately settled on Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) to replace him.
Johnson now faces his own uphill battle to retain the position when the new Congress convenes on Friday. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has said he won’t vote for Johnson, and with a razor-thin GOP majority in the House, any such defection puts Johnson’s speakership on the brink.
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“If 2 people, Massie plus one, don’t vote for Johnson, we won’t have a speaker & won’t swear in, until we do,” Crockett posted.
“If Dems had the house, we’d have speaker Jeffries in the first round!” she added, referring to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
President-elect Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind Johnson. Congress can’t certify the results of the 2024 election until a speaker is elected.