One day after a State Department spokesperson warned that the ongoing Speaker of the House battle could eventually raise concerns related to the United States’ national security, a White House spokesperson offered a less alarming narrative.
“I don’t want to speculate about how long things would go before there would be some deeper concern about national security implications,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Jan. 6.
“We’re confident that we can continue to defend the United States of America while House Republicans are working through this process,” he continued, adding that there are “vehicles in place” for national security-related communications between the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price had said Jan. 5 that the grinding dispute over this Congress’s speakership could prove problematic from a national security perspective.
“The U.S. Congress has indispensable functions when it comes to America’s foreign policy. There’s an important oversight role. There’s an important authorization role. There’s an important appropriations role. There’s an important voice to be had when it comes to the direction of American foreign policy,” he said during a press briefing.
A reporter asked Price about delays in national security briefings of House members while the Speaker fight continues.
Members must be sworn in to receive the security screening necessary for those briefings—but they cannot be sworn in until a Speaker is chosen.
“The first few days of any congressional term usually is spent on procedural elements like this, but of course, if this continues on, there will be additional concerns. I’m sure we will hear additional concerns from the Hill as well,” Price said.
He later added that keeping Congress abreast of national security issues is “much more difficult” while the House is not yet seated.
“A handful of Members are holding us hostage from doing our job and putting our national security at risk!” wrote Rep. Donald Bacon (R-Neb.) in a Jan. 5 tweet.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper did not indicate that the prospect of such a deal concerned her during a Jan. 6 press briefing.
“We have enjoyed tremendous bipartisan support for Ukraine security assistance, and while I certainly would imagine that the details of that assistance will evolve over time, I still would anticipate strong support from the U.S. Congress,” she said.
The contest for Speaker of the House hasn’t taken more than one round of votes since 1923, and it hasn’t involved this many rounds since the nineteenth century.
State Department Versus White House in History
The White House and the State Department haven’t always seen eye to eye in recent presidential administrations.As president, Donald Trump was repeatedly frustrated by leaks from agencies nominally under his control, including the State Department. One internal State Department memo on the hazard of leaks was itself leaked to the press.
During the twilight of the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan famously clashed with his State Department over the famous speech he delivered at Brandenburg Gate in 1987, within sight of the Berlin Wall.
Speechwriter Peter Robinson, now a Hoover Institution fellow, recalled in 2007 the lengthy process of approving the address’s most famous line–“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
According to Robinson, Reagan ultimately resolved to deliver the famous line while driving to the wall, telling aide Ken Duberstein that “the boys at State are going to kill me, but it’s the right thing to do.”
