Cong. Hill sees difficult path in House Speaker dilemma, praises U.S. response to Israel attacks

U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, said the path to select a new Speaker of the House has multiple options, but he’s unsure of what may be the eventual outcome. The Second District Republican Congressman also said America’s response to the attacks on Israel has been “outstanding.”

Appearing on this week’s Talk Business & Politics and Capitol View, Hill said the process to choose a new Speaker of the House after the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy has been frought with difficulties.

“As we tape our show, we’re going to spend this weekend in a family meeting in the House Republican Conference, and I think I can say with some certainty, we’re not walking out until we have a solution to a new House Speaker. And I think if I look at it sort of analytically, I can see two paths right now.

“First, that we do coalesce with a new leader in the Republican House that can serve as the Speaker of the House for the rest of the 118th Congress. Or, I could envision a situation where we grant Speaker authority to the current Speaker Pro Temp, Patrick McHenry, of North Carolina, for, say, until January 1st, in order to get through these important budget negotiations that we have with the Senate and the President,” he said. “But I do think it’ll be a new name based on seeing how the last two weeks have played out.”

Could a power-sharing agreement with Democrats – one that involves a centrist Republican that could appeal across the aisle – potentially be an outcome?

“If it came heads up, without any conditions, where Democrats felt it was actually in their party’s interest to have a centrist candidate that they could accept, and they would offer some votes, I think that’s conceivable,” Hill said. “But I don’t think it’s conceivable that Republicans would develop a formal power-sharing situation or change the number of people on committees, or the rules committee, for example.

“Traditionally in our system, it is a majoritarian system. It’s a party system, and the best legislating is to let the majority party drive that message,” he added.

Hill said the U.S. response in the wake of massive attacks by Hamas militants on Israel a week ago has been spot-on.

“I think the U.S. response has been outstanding. We were the first country to recognize Israel at its founding, we’ve been an ironclad ally of Israel during its whole existence, so I think the response was immediate.

“I think the big question on Capitol Hill, among both Democrats and Republicans, are what’s the origin of this intelligence failure where people did not have, inside the Israeli government, or allied governments, some feel of the scope, planning, and execution of this potential attack, the biggest attack on Israel since 1973, so in 50 years, and in one day, the Hamas terrorists killed more people in one day, the first day of this strike, than in all 50 days of the Intifada, back in 2014,” he said.

“Diplomatically, the United States is working overtime to make sure that this crisis does not expand. And that diplomacy includes working with allies and neighbors in the regions to really ensure that both Syria, which is controlled by Iran, and Hezbollah, in Lebanon, which is controlled by Iran, don’t open up a second front of war on Israel’s northern border. Secondly, the diplomacy is working with Turkey and Qatar, who have influence over Hamas as a terror group,” Hill said.

You can watch Rep. Hill’s full interview in the video below.