METAIRIE, La. — Steve Scalise mingled, dined and gave a rousing speech at the campaign headquarters of some victorious Jefferson Parish politicians Saturday night, and while he didn’t want to belabor the problems in the House, he did say that a small group of people are keeping the body from doing important work.
Scalise appeared in line to succeed Kevin McCarthy as speaker after winning a ballot against Jim Jordan this past week but the margin was close and there were a couple of dozen people who would not coalesce around Scalise.
The House Majority Leader said he thinks the logjam will break in the next few days, but…
“You do have a small core of people who only want their person and if it’s not my guy, I’m not gonna vote for anybody else,” he told WWL-TV Saturday night. “That’s where the wall was hit and the wall is still there.”
Scalise wasn’t sure why he wasn’t able to cobble together the necessary support. He did address his health concerns over a blood cancer battle and said he was doing even better than expected and, in fact, had his chemotherapy treatment time reduced.
Scalise said that he knows that while the House was waging internal battles there was a war breaking out in the Middle East after a terrorist attack on Israel. He said there is important work in support of Israel that needs to be accomplished, and can’t be, until the House settles its leadership issue.
“I talked to the ambassador from Israel about very specific needs that they have right now – Iron Dome missile replenishment, some very targeted missile guidance systems that we have that we need to get them that we can’t with Congress not in action. It’s much bigger than me and anybody else,” he said.
Scalise said that he didn’t do this (presumably making a bid for speaker) for the title. “I’m not going to be the reason that we don’t get the House back open,” he said. “It’s bigger than me.”