Newsmax’s Morris Had Things To Say About House Speaker Fight

Newsmax pundit Dick Morris says what he needs to to get on his employer’s TV channel, and he had opinions about the House Republicans firing Kevin McCarthy as House speaker and squabbling over picking a new one. He surprisingly didn’t endorse it, as an Oct. 4 Newsmax TV appearance showed:

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., with his actions against ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other activities in the chamber, is “destabilizing the Republican Party,” and eventually could cost the party the presidency, political strategist and former presidential adviser Dick Morris tells Newsmax.

“I’m in line with what Newt Gingrich says, which is that Gaetz is a self-serving ambitious guy who did this simply to attract attention and that he’s leading basically a group of people who were exercising their power trying to get on the news and destabilizing the Republican Party,” Morris said Tuesday on Newsmax’s “The Right Squad.”

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Morris pointed out that with the election coming up in 2024, the Republican Party is projecting “an image of being totally incapable of governing, and totally incapable of running Congress.”

He was joined in this appearance by credibly accused sexual harasser Matt Schlapp (which Newsmax didn’t mention):

American Conservative Union leader Matt Schlapp, also on Tuesday night’s program, argued that Gingrich, like former Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan, was a “failed speaker,” and that there is a division in the conference because Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell believes that there should not be spending fights because they are lost.

Morris returned for an Oct. 13 appearance to press his point again:

Political analyst and author Dick Morris told Newsmax on Monday that a fractured House Republican conference might be losing something important while members bicker over who will be next to hold the speaker’s gavel.

“The majority of the American people are absolutely appalled that in the middle of what’s going on in the Middle East and the crises the world faces, the Republicans are squabbling of who is going to have that gavel,” Morris, a former presidential adviser to Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, told “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”

“What they can end up doing is blowing it. They’ll end up losing all the chairmanships and the majority and the whole bit and, to boot, being seen by the country as incapable of governing.

“The stakes are so high and the big differences in ideology are minuscule. This is a battle of egos and personalities that can get out of hand and lead … Democrats to taking power again.”

Morris used an Oct. 23 TV appearance to tout Pete Sessions and Byron Donalds as “probably the most MAGA” of potential speaker candidates, but added that, in writer Nick Koutsobinas’ words, “he conceded that Trump would be the decider as to who is the best representative of the MAGA coalition.”

When House Republicans did finally pick a new speaker — Mike Johnson, not either of Morris’ candidates — Morris unsurprisingly tried to give Donald Trump credit for it in an Oct. 28 appearance:

Former President Donald Trump was the “decisive influence” in the House Republicans’ choice of a new speaker, and it is “quite a recommendation” for him to choose and trust Speaker Mike Johnson, his advisor Dick Morris said Saturday on Newsmax.

“The important point is that Republicans in the House have learned their lesson,” Morris said on Newsmax’s “Saturday Report.”

“I think they were excoriated throughout the country for the horrible ballot after ballot after ballot and they rejected candidate after candidate. They’ve learned their lesson and I think they’ll follow him and back Johnson where he’s going to lead.”

Newsmax floated the idea of Trump as speaker on a temporary basis, if not longer, but it too signed off on Johnson as the new speaker.