Zinke calls chaos surrounding Speaker election ’embarrassing’

Rep.-elect Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) called the scenes of Republican infighting over the House Speakership “embarrassing” as the standoff over who leads the chamber heads into a third day.

“If you have differences, then solve the differences internally,” Zinke said in an interview with CNN Thursday morning. “Don’t run up the flagpole and show disorganization (and) dysfunction, not only to America but the world.”

Zinke, a former Trump Cabinet member who has backed Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to be Speaker in each of the six rounds of voting so far, said people are watching Republicans ahead of the 2024 elections to determine whether the party can govern effectively.

McCarthy says he is making progress in talks with some of the 20 GOP members-elect who have opposed him so far, but he can only afford to lose a few votes and its unclear if any concessions could win over some of the hard-line holdouts.

Party heavyweights from outside the House have started to weigh in on the Speaker’s fight, with former President Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence both urging GOP members to support McCarthy on Wednesday.

Zinke, who served in the Trump administration as Secretary of the Interior until 2019, conceded that the former president’s urgings did not appear to impact the Speaker’s race.

“Certainly yesterday he did not have influence because it really didn’t change any votes,” Zinke said. “There’s a couple things that President Trump probably finds to be an irritant: one, to be ignored and two, to be called out.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who is among McCarthy’s opponents, addressed Trump in a speech on the House floor on Wednesday.

“Let’s work together. Let’s stop with the campaign smears and tactics to get people to turn against, even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off,” Boebert said.