WASHINGTON ― For a man who won the majority of his party’s votes on Wednesday to become the new House speaker, Majority Leader , saying “Republican leadership like Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise are all uniting behind my campaign because they know no one will work harder than I will.”
On Thursday, in a rare move, Mace declined to be interviewed about her stance on Scalise.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said he was not voting for Scalise because he wanted to make sure spending cuts that would affect most government programs across the board would take place next spring, as scheduled under the debt limit deal Republicans and the White House reached in May. He said he feared Scalise would reach an agreement to make smaller cuts instead.
The automatic spending cuts were included in the deal on a bipartisan basis to actually encourage a deal on spending bills.
“I’m concerned he doesn’t want to leverage that 1% cut that’s already been signed into law by Joe Biden,” Massie said.
Massie said his reasoning was his alone and not part of a larger anti-Scalise effort.
“This is what I think is the right thing and that’s why I’m doing it,” he said.
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