Maga Republican boasts small House majority helps right-wingers amid ongoing chaos

Pennsylvania Rep Scott Perry argued that the House GOP’s narrow majority is to the benefit of hard-right Republicans as leadership vies for their support on each individual vote to get measures passed.

Speaking about the 2022 midterms, Mr Perry said, “We knew we were going to take the majority”.

The Pennsylvanian, a former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said during a panel discussion at CPAC on Thursday in National Harbor, Maryland that “some in the party thought there was going to be a big majority. But we didn’t see that because we hadn’t earned it”.

“We thought there was going to be a small majority. And the good news about that is that folks like myself, chairman of the Freedom Caucus and Russ Fulcher, a member of the Freedom Caucus, knew that we’re going to potentially have an outsize influence so we prepared for it,” he added. “So we went to the guy that wanted to be the speaker six months before that and said things have got to change around here.”

Hardright members have wreaked plenty of chaos during the 118th Congress, including the ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who needed 15 votes in January to grasp the gavel after a drawn-out fight with righting members of the Republican ranks.

The process to replace him was also devoured by intra-party Republican rancour, with Speaker Mike Johnson eventually being elected after several others failed.

“The urgency in America to save the Republic needs to be addressed. People are demanding it and we should deliver it, and that’s what the majority is all about. So we can’t keep doing the same things the same way with the same people and expect a different outcome,” Mr Perry said on Thursday.

“I will tell you this. There are Republicans, there are conservatives – some Republicans are conservatives. And then you got the folks that are willing to save the Republic,” he added. “That’s [who] we need to be elected, regardless of whether they’re from New York or from Pennsylvania or from Texas. It doesn’t matter where they come from, but there are certain things that are perennial, and that is that government is too big. It’s involved in our business.

“It’s ... failing us on an international scale. Unfortunately, there are many Republicans that want to continue the spending, and they have their project and it’s so important to them,” Mr Perry said.

“There’s always a deal to be made because they’re gonna vote for that and they can always find enough Democrats to vote for all the other stuff and they cobble that together. And then folks like me and [Congressman] Russ [Fulcher] are left off,” he added.