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Even a Fox News host isn't buying the Republican line on Jeffries [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-10-19  

Republicans keep trying to put their House speaker mess on Democrats, and it keeps not working—because they’ve got nothing.

Former Republican rising star Jason Chaffetz went on Fox News, where he’s a regular contributor, and tried to run the “Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has lost a lot of speaker votes” talking point that Rep. Mike Collins tweeted on Wednesday. Even on Fox News, this line didn’t go without a challenge.

Part of Chaffetz’s problem was that to get to his talking point, he had to ignore the question he was being asked. What Fox News host John Roberts wanted to know was, “If the script were flipped and it was Democrats who were in control of Congress, if Hakeem Jeffries was put up for a vote for speaker, how long do you think it would take to get to 218?”

x Fox News' John Roberts: If Democrats were in the majority, how long would it take Hakeem Jeffries to get to 218 votes?



Jason Chaffetz: "Well, Hakeem Jeffries has now lost 17 races in a row. So 17 times in a row, he's been put up for Speaker and he's lost." pic.twitter.com/a6xlkCd7sp — Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 19, 2023

“Well, Hakeem Jeffries has now lost 17 races in a row,” Chaffetz answered. “So 17 times in a row, he’s been put up as speaker and he’s lost. So he’s kind of already over that threshold. I just don’t think one party is going to come in and support another party. I just don’t think we’re going to get to that point and see it. Maybe we do, but I really doubt it.”

But the question was not, “What has happened in 2023?” The answer to that question, of course, is: “Republicans have been such a clown show that they’ve had to hold 17 speaker votes, and Jeffries has had the highest total on 13 of those votes, despite Democrats being in the minority.” The question was, “If Democrats had the majority, how long would it take them to elect Jeffries as speaker?” And their unity on the 17 votes so far this year tells the tale: Jeffries would be elected the first time out.

To his credit, Roberts responded with a mild reminder of what he had asked, saying, “No, I just meant, I think the Democrats would elect a speaker very quickly if they were in the position that the Republicans are in.”

This pushback from Fox News, of all places, piles on top of the Republican insistence that Democrats are to blame for the entire speaker disaster. Earlier this week, that argument repeatedly went down in flames at the hands of CNN’s Brianna Keilar, who was not having it. But let’s offer Republicans some sympathy: When your party is embarrassing itself day after day, it is hard to spin reality out of sight.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/19/2200385/-Even-a-Fox-News-host-isn-t-buying-the-Republican-line-on-Jeffries?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_7&pm_medium=web

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