Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) has been an outspoken opponent of his colleague Jim Jordan (R-OH) who seeks to become the next Speaker of the House and has been a darling of left-wing media, especially CNN.
The Colorado Republican appeared with CNN’s Jake Tapper after he joined nineteen other GOP turncoats in dealing a major blow to Jordan’s speakership hopes on Tuesday afternoon, acknowledging that the cable network’s chumminess with him isn’t going to go over well with his conservative constituents back home.
(Video: CNN)
“Congressman, good to see you. Thanks so much for being here,” Tapper said, welcoming him to the show. “One thing, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’ve actually been praising you on the show. And I hope that doesn’t hurt you at home.”
“It will,” Buck laughed.
While discussing the ongoing process to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy who was ousted two weeks ago, Buck told Tapper that he’s dug in when it comes to backing a replacement who won’t swear to the legitimacy of President Joe Biden’s election in 2020 and who doesn’t accept the official narrative that the events of January 6, 2021 were an actual “insurrection” with a real chance of overthrowing the U.S. government.
“I want the next speaker to acknowledge that,” Buck said, referring to Biden’s historic 81 million votes. “I also want to make sure that we don’t have somebody who was involved in the activities surrounding January 6th. And I think that if we have a presidential candidate who, right now, is leading, who denies that he lost the election and was obviously behind what happened on January 6th, and we have a speaker in a similar situation…,” he added of Jordan, who has been endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump.
“We have 20 Republicans sitting in Joe Biden districts right now, districts that Joe Biden won in 2020, and those 20 Republicans are gonna be at risk,” he added. “There’s no way we win the majority if the message we send to the American people is that we believe that the election was stolen and we believe that January 6th was okay. It was a tour of the Capitol.”
In one of his previous appearances on CNN last week, Buck said that he would be a likely “yes” vote for Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) as the next Speaker.
I talked to @stevescalise last night and told him that if he gets close to the requisite number of votes to obtain the Speakership, I will support his nomination. pic.twitter.com/yz930roo2P
— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) October 12, 2023
Scalise withdrew himself from consideration after he failed to get the votes, opening the door for Jordan that Buck and his fellow turncoats are determined to nail shut as they did on Tuesday, throwing the Ohio Republican’s bid for the position into limbo with another vote set to take place on Wednesday.
Buck also opposed the House’s impeachment inquiry into Biden over corruption and bribery, angering some of his conservative colleagues.
“This is the same guy that wrote a book called ‘Drain the Swamp’, who is now arguing against an impeachment inquiry,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told CNN last month. “I really don’t see how we can have a member on Judiciary that is flat out refusing to impeach. … It seems like, can he even be trusted to do his job at this point?”
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.