White House Reacts To House GOP Picking Tom Emmer As Their Latest Speaker Nominee

On Tuesday, Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about House Republicans selecting Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) to be the speaker nominee.

Transcript

00:00 Republicans have selected Tom Emmer as their speaker nominee.

00:03 I know you've said very often that the White House

00:05 does not have a vote in this.

00:06 No, I'm sure.

00:07 [LAUGHTER]

00:08 --in this process.

00:09 But Emmer has been one of the more supportive Republicans

00:13 for Ukraine aid across the board.

00:15 Do you see that as a positive signal?

00:16 I'm just not going to speak to their process.

00:18 I'm sure there's more steps to go, right,

00:21 before we get to the end here.

00:22 I think it's important and critical

00:25 that the Republicans in the conference

00:28 get their act together, get their business in order,

00:31 and figure out who's going to lead not just the conference,

00:34 obviously, since they have the majority in the House,

00:37 have a speaker for the House.

00:39 Just not going to get into it.

00:40 I have said just moments ago, we have

00:42 seen bipartisan support for the supplemental package

00:46 that the president announced last week,

00:49 that we announced that we spoke to last week.

00:51 And so we believe that Congress should move forward with that.

00:54 As it relates to their process and finding a speaker,

00:57 that is up to them.

00:59 We do not, as the president has said himself, just quoting him,

01:02 we do not have a vote in that space.