CLAY: So how does this play out? So we’re on, I believe, the eighth vote right now.
REP. BISHOP: Yeah.
CLAY: If you are still going to vote for Byron Donalds, that would suggest that the 20 or so of which you are a member who will not support will not support the current, expected speaker here. How does this end? Like where do where do we go from here? How do you see this playing out?
REP. BISHOP: It is… You know, from sampling the media and interviews and inquiries I’ve had, that’s the question seems to be on everybody’s mind. And I understand that it is. And the answer is that I don’t precisely know. But that is the beauty of the process we’re engaged in, and a lot of people are wringing their hands, or you see on some places out on media, “It’s chaos!” It’s not chaos. This is how Congress operates, and so we’ve had three days — that the nation will certainly endure — in which we’ve been in…
You know, there’s something on there’s a spectacle on TV about votes that American people aren’t accustomed to seeing, and there’s a lot of work that’s going on in the background and has been for months to do what I said at the top, which is to change this place and make it work, because at least in my sense, I don’t know that many people — I’ve not encountered that many — who say, “You know what? Congress works exactly as it should. It’s basically solving the American people’s problems and keeping things working well.” I don’t think anybody thinks that. I’ve found about 90% of the people think otherwise.
BUCK: We’re speaking to Congressman Bishop. He’s on the floor right now — or I should say, in Congress right now up on Capitol Hill — and about to be casting his vote on the floor. He will be casting it for speaker of the House, for Byron Donalds, not for Kevin McCarthy; we’ve established that. Congressman Bishop, of course, of North Carolina for everybody out there, what is it that…? What is it that would be different? Let’s say let’s just say for the purpose of discussion that Congressman Donalds is successful eventually — and who knows, could be on the 50th ballot given how things are going. If that were to happen, how would Congress be different than a Kevin McCarthy speakership?
REP. BISHOP: Here’s the clearest way that I could even say it. Two weeks ago, we passed rammed through the House after coming out of the Senate with 18 Republican votes, a $1.7 trillion omnibus — put together by a handful of people in the dark, in the back rooms — that has all sorts of horrible stuff in it. I’ve detailed it in a long Twitter thread that went viral — some of it, what you can — 4800 pages. They put it out two days before we pass it, right before Christmas, ram it through “or else the government’s going to shut down.”
That would stop, and we’re working on stopping that regardless who the speaker becomes by changing rules and processes. But those can always be waived by a majority vote on the House floor, and so what you really need… The best way to guarantee change is to have a person who will lead you to change. But if you can’t get that, then you’ve got to do the best you can to build processes and build pressure so that you follow through and do the right things. It is a tough call, but it’s really important that it succeed.
CLAY: So you’re voting for Byron Donalds, you said, although you haven’t got to cast that vote yet on the eighth ballot here as they search for a speaker. But yesterday I believe it was, Cori Bush, Democrat from Missouri, attacked him based on his race.
REP. BISHOP: Right.
CLAY: I mean, it was basically blatantly racist for being up as potentially a speaker candidate. I believe you spoke on the floor earlier to address that issue. What did you say and what did you think of what Cory Bush said about Byron Donalds, the man who you intend to vote for as speaker of the House?
REP. BISHOP: I put it out there in my in my speech nominating him on the first ballot of the day, and what she said about him in a tweet, she called him “a prop,” and you’d need to know Byron Donalds to know how absurd it is. He’s not a prop, and this is — and the reason I spoke of it today, and of one other incident that has occurred is — utter illustrations of Washington, D.C. that people are completely familiar with. They’ve seen it for years and years. That grotesquely racist trope is used constantly by the left here. It’s got to stop. We’ve got to quit doing things exactly the same way in the same order and expect different results, and I just think it’s reprehensible. And calling it out, just like doing this is the kind of thing that men and women of courage are going to need to come here and do and (chuckles) I got to tell you, if you don’t have courage here, it’s never going to change.