Grover Norquist tells Newsmax that the opposition to House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday was not a real revolt, and that Boehner has actually led the party well.
If there were a real revolt, "he would've had a serious challenge in November instead of nobody running against him," Norquist told Ed Berliner on "MidPoint" on
Newsmax TV on Wednesday. But "nobody ran against him and one guy voted no."
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"This was not a revolt the way [former House Speaker Newt] Gingrich had — a real revolt, several times," he explained.
"I understand the frustration — we have had a Republican majority in the House and yet you can't do very much with it because of Reid's Senate, and people would get mad at Boehner because legislation didn't pass the Senate," he said.
Now "we simply have to direct them at Harry Reid, the Democrats in the Senate and now at a presidential veto," he contends.
"Boehner's kept the party together, he's built the majority, and he's given us a series of votes that have allowed us to grow the majority," he added.
Norquist says Boehner has led the party well through each new challenge he has faced.
"Boehner has managed the House when it was in opposition, when they were the minority, the Republicans were a minority against Obama, and they held every single Republican against Obamacare, against the stimulus — that's one task," he explained.
"Then they got the majority, but not the Senate majority, and then he was able to pass legislation through the House knowing that it would die in the Senate because Reid didn't allow votes, and he did that fairly well," he said.
Now there's "this completely third act of the play, where now he has a working majority — there's a minor revolt among some House guys, and he still had 13 votes to spare of his majority," he added.
"He has a broad-enough majority that if any one group goes away mad, like appropriators or certain special interests, he can still hold together a majority," the president of Americans for Tax Reform contends.
"We're going to have bills that we pass in the House that we expect to pass in the Senate, and the president to sign," he said.
Senate Democrats will also be forced to vote on legislation that Reid has shielded them from, which helped to protect their seats on election day, but now they will get passed and "they'll go to the president" to be signed, he said.
When the Senate votes on those bills, "that's what you defeat Democratic senators with in 2016, 2018 and 2020," Norquist said.
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