Rep. Donalds Says He’s ‘Not Worried’ About Potential Retaliation Over Speaker Standoff

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) talks with fellow Republicans after the new Congress failed to elect a new House Speaker at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Jan. 03, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

As the voting continues on Capitol Hill to determine the next speaker of the House, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) has emerged as a key figure in the camp opposing Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) after withdrawing his support of the Republican leader earlier this week.

But as for potential retribution for his defection, Donalds said he isn’t concerned.

“Man, I’m 6’2,” 275 [pounds], I’m not worried about that,” the congressman told reporters on Jan. 4 after Republicans failed a sixth time to elect a speaker.

“The way I view these things is that we’ll work through it and figure it out, but the real pressure, the real danger, that’s not happening in here,” he added.

After initially supporting McCarthy in the first two rounds of voting on Jan. 3, Donalds retracted his support when the Californian representative failed twice to receive the required 218 votes to secure the speakership.

“The reality is Rep. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes,” Donalds explained in a series of tweets on Tuesday. “I committed my support to him publicly and for two votes on the House Floor. 218 is the number, and currently, no one is there.”

“When the dust settles, we will have a Republican Speaker,” he added, “now is the time for our conference to debate and come to a consensus.”

Getting to 218

Six speaker votes have taken place since Tuesday with no candidate receiving a majority. In each of those elections, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has garnered the most votes, earning the support of all 212 Democrats in the chamber.

McCarthy has consistently placed second in every vote, though his support has diminished from the 203 votes he received in the first election to 201 in the sixth.

Donalds, meanwhile, has amassed the support of 20 staunchly conservative Republicans who oppose handing McCarthy the gavel on the grounds that they believe he would not implement the institutional changes they feel are necessary on Capitol Hill.

In nominating Donalds, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said: “There’s an important reason for nominating Byron and that is this country needs a change. This country needs leadership that does not reflect this city, this town that is badly broken. House of Representatives is the people’s house.”

After the conclusion of the second day of voting, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)—considered to be the leader of the opposition to McCarthy’s speaker bid—told Fox News’ Trace Gallagher that he anticipates additional defections from the McCarthy camp as the voting continues.

“I think this ends one of two ways, Trace,” Gaetz said. “Either Kevin bows out, realizing there’s no path for him to become speaker of the House … or he essentially has to wake up, bring the House into session, and put on a straitjacket with a rules package that we presented to him that does not allow a lot of discretion for the speaker of the House.”

McCarthy and his detractors spent two hours negotiating Wednesday after the sixth failed vote, during which the Californian reportedly made several concessions, including the reinstatement of a rule that a single House member can force a vote to oust the speaker at any time, according to NBC News.

“The reason we’ve demanded that is that we do not trust Kevin McCarthy,” Gaetz told Fox News. “And it’s not a small body of work. The guy’s been in Washington, D.C., for 14 years, and this town needs to change. And we’re going to change it one way or the other.”

Implications for the Country

While former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has characterized Republicans’ ongoing negotiations as “a very sad day” for the country, Donalds pushed back against that notion on Wednesday.

“This is actually an invigorating day for America,” he told reporters, “because what it demonstrates is that you do have people up here on Capitol Hill who, one, can get together and have tough conversations and negotiate things out, [and] two, do things for the betterment of their constituents back home.”

However, other Republicans have expressed a different view, including former President Donald Trump.

Trump, who supports McCarthy, told Fox News on Wednesday that he felt the continued infighting was a “dangerous game.”

“I support [McCarthy] and I support getting the deal done,” Trump said. “What I don’t support is allowing this to continue onward.”

Other Republicans have also expressed frustration over the situation, including Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who is backing McCarthy for speaker.

“I hope that this is a learning experience for both McCarthy and the 20 holdouts that we got to do this in a timely manner next time,” McCaul told NTD, sister outlet of The Epoch Times, on Thursday ahead of the seventh vote. “We don’t want to have scenarios where the government is shut down. And we don’t want to have scenarios where we miss deadlines on important pieces of legislation.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) said she agreed with the holdouts that the rules on Capitol Hill need to be changed, but questioned the motives of those who refuse to support McCarthy no matter what.

“There’s a handful of people that have said, ‘It doesn’t matter what concessions are made, what wins we get, we will never support Kevin McCarthy,’” she told NTD on Thursday.

“That’s not helpful, and that’s not putting the country first. And as an ‘America First’ candidate, I think we need to be putting America first and doing what’s best for the people.”