CNN "Outfront" - TRANSCRIPT House Fight For Speaker Intensifies As McCarthy Loses Third Vote; Damar Hamlin's Uncle To CNN: He Was Resuscitated Twice; Idaho Suspect Agrees To Be Extradited To Face Murder Charges. Aired 7-8p ET

Interview

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Joining us now is Republican Congressman Blake Moore of Utah.

And, Congressman, just to be clear, where you stand, you supported Kevin McCarthy on all three ballots today. Can I just ask you, I guess, on a basic level, did you have any idea that it was going to end up like this where here you are tonight adjourned, don't have the votes, no sign of getting them and you're making history with how many ballots it's taking?

REP. BLAKE MOORE (R-UT): Correct, yes. I supported Kevin McCarthy for all three of the ballots today, as the vast majority of our conference did. Did we know today was going to be a tough day, a lot of negotiation -- you could see when you walk in there was a lot of press today. It was obviously going to happen.

And you ask about the end in sight. Look, one thing that's being left out of the conversation I think with a lot of this is Republicans, for better or worse, or notoriously don't always just fall in line. And you saw that today.

And I'm hopeful that we can get there here in the near future because, like I've said in days leading up to this, like we have an agenda, and we want to implement that agenda, and we can either be a conference that comes together to do that, or we can let just a select few from keeping us from being able to do that. That's where I hope that we're going and we're going to work hard to get there.

BURNETT: Your colleague David Valadao from California, obviously, has also supported McCarthy. He told me if it took a thousand votes, he would still support McCarthy. Do you say the same thing? Because there are some on the other side saying six months we'll fight this out. Are you willing to say this could go on indefinitely?

MOORE: Yeah, that's the majority of the conference right now is we're

sticking with McCarthy. Look, I think it was best put today, and Ii apologize for the sports analogy. My heart goes to Bills nation, as I saw some of your coverage before that, and that was excellent coverage of that.

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But one person said it. We in the last two elections, House Republicans have won significant seats in 2020. We took the majority in 2022. And Leader McCarthy has been -- Speaker-elect McCarthy has been at the helm for that. You don't take out A pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter.

So, we're going in the right direction, and we need to continue to let him have a chance to lead here because here's the point that's really important. At the base of every conversation we had, across the conference, from every ideology from within the conference, it all comes back down to we have a major concern with runaway government spending.

And Kevin McCarthy has been in leadership when Republicans were in control and the majority of Congress. And we were able to reduce discretionary spending, and the rules package that he negotiated in good faith that we had ready to go if he is the speaker disappoint. We have the best opportunity to get mandatory spending under control, too.

And those are the things that we all want to have happened. So, we've got to be able to implement our agenda.

BURNETT: The thing about that is, though, Congressman, you would have to get some of these 20 Republicans to change their point of view. They have shown absolutely no indication of doing that. So you're right. You have the vast majority of Republicans supporting McCarthy. All of those things are true, but they're not enough. They're not enough.

Do you have any indication that there is anything else that can be done, or is there a point where you will say all right, I wish it were McCarthy, it should have been McCarthy, but I'll go for, say, Steve Scalise?

MOORE: Right. So, there is already more discussions going on today. Like I said, we just don't easily fall in line. Sometimes you were able to see Speaker Pelosi do that a lot more. I'm getting in my second term. We saw a lot of that in the first term.

Even though not all Democrats agreed with her, they ended up kind of falling in line. What we're trying to do here is continue to have these discussions so we can get there. The support is still very strong for Kevin McCarthy, and no one is now saying we want to find a consensus candidate.

This is day one. There's bare things going on in my district. BURNETT: So, no one is saying consensus candidate. And do you -- have

you had any conversations with any of the 20, or are you aware that any of them are in meetings, that there is some sort of progress being made tonight?

MOORE: I talk to those individuals all the time. I'm not sure where things are at with conversations tonight.

BURNETT: And how do you think this starts tomorrow? Obviously, you guys will be back in session at noon.

MOORE: At noon. Probably a little similar to today. And, you know, like you said, you hear people talking six months. I'm hopefully able to wrap up this up sooner.

We have a job to do. We were elected to get our agenda implemented, Commitment to America, and we've got to be able to do that.

BURNETT: And do you think there are any other concessions from what you understand that Kevin McCarthy could give these holdouts that would bring anybody over, even any one individual? Because everything -- when you talk about it, it seems like he has already capitulated. He already put everything on the table he could put on there. Is there anything else you're aware he could do?

MOORE: You know, Erin, you have been that right. There has been a very good faith negotiation from Speaker-elect McCarthy, and there is some goalposts that have been moved in last few day, and we're very frustrated at that.

This is -- this is something that we have to be able to get past again. If we just let a few select individuals control the entire agenda, we're not going to be able to govern appropriately this term, and that's what we were elected to do. So --

BURNETT: All right. We'll see. Of course, those few individuals, they think they can and we'll see what happens. Obviously, it's going to be a crucial next 24 hours.

Congressman Moore, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

MOORE: Thank you.

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