Montana’s Zinke Weighs in on US House Speaker Battle [AUDIO]

Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke (R-MT01) called in to our statewide radio talk show on Wednesday in the midst of the battle over who would be elected as the Speaker of the House in the US House of Representatives.

On Tuesday, Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) secured over 200 votes from fellow Republicans during three successive rounds of voting, but fell short of the 218 needed to be elected speaker.

As of Wednesday night, a speaker still has not been named. Montana's other Congressman, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT02), is one of the 20 or so GOP holdouts who has been voting against McCarthy.

I asked Zinke how frustrating it was to sit through the entire long, drawn out process on the floor of the US House.

Rep. Zinke: It was disappointing. This is the way that I see it. We don't have control of the Senate. We don't have control of the administration. The last line of freedom really is the House of Representatives. And the last line of freedom we see now is in chaos. And I don't think it's really a matter about the speaker, it's about showing that the Republicans can govern. And I've heard the arguments- 'Well, Kevin is not supported by conservatives. That's not true. The Freedom Caucus- about half the Freedom Caucus- Marjorie Taylor Greene would be an icon in that caucus, Jim Jordan, Duncan a lot of the founding members of the Freedom Caucus, as well as President Trump all are behind McCarthy...

Congressman-elect Ryan Zinke noted that over 90% of the GOP caucus is behind McCarthy. (The reason I say "Congressman-elect" is because the newly elected majority of House Republicans won't even be sworn in until a Speaker is named)

Rep. Zinke: You just got a few that want either my way or the highway. And that's just not gonna fly. At the end of the day, we need to get things done. You have- Steve Scalise has outlined bills that are ready to go. And these bills are exactly what I was sent here to do. Again, I was sent here to fix the problems and get things done, not to be a sound bite on Fox News.

Here's the full audio of our phone call from Rep. Zinke on Wednesday morning's "Montana Talks with Aaron Flint": (By the way, Congressman Rosendale should be joining us on Thursday's show. Then on Friday we will be LIVE from the Montana capitol rotunda in Helena.)