Rep. Jordan: Founding Fathers Would Have Liked 'Messy' McCarthy Drama

The drama surrounding House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's election last week was "messy," but that's how the nation's founding fathers wanted democracy to be, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Sunday.

"They wanted real debate, real input from all people, and then you get a decision," Jordan said on "Fox News Sunday." "Whether it's one vote or 15 votes, Kevin McCarthy is still Speaker of the House. I've seen all kinds of games going into extra innings and overtime. That's just how it works."

But now that the voting is over and McCarthy, R-Calif., is the speaker, Republicans will come together as a party to "deal with how radical the left now has made the Democrat Party," said Jordan.

"I said this on the floor on Tuesday; you think about in a two-year time span we have seen a border that is no longer a border," said Jordan. "We have seen a military that can't meet its recruitment goal. We have seen terrible energy policy, terrible education policy, record spending, record inflation, record debt, and most importantly, a government weaponized against the very people it's supposed to serve."

But the Republicans, in the majority of the House, will "unite around fixing those problems which have all happened in two years," Jordan said. "That's what we're going to focus on. We'll pass the rules package tomorrow and we'll get moving, doing what the American people elected us to do."

And even though it took all week for McCarthy to get enough votes to become speaker, Jordan said he believes the 218 votes are there to pass the rules package.

"[What] This rules package is designed to do is to stop what we saw happen 15 days ago when the Democrats passed a $1.7 trillion monstrosity of a bill that spent the American taxpayers' money in all kinds of crazy ways," said Jordan. "It's why you have 72 hours to review the document. We're going to enforce that rule. The Democrats didn't have that rule. So we suggest you can't have a bill where you throw all kinds of other things on that piece of legislation. Those are the kind of rules that we think make sense."

The new rules will also allow for spreading members from across the conference to committees, "so you get the diversity of opinion within the Republican congress in all the key committees," said Jordan. "You will get a better product coming out of committee, which will then go onto the floor. It gives you a better opportunity to pass the kind of legislation to address the problems I just talked about."

Meanwhile, considering the United States has a $32 trillion debt, "everything has to be on the table," including potential defense spending cuts, said Jordan.

"We're on pace to spend $500 billion, $600 billion in debt payments just to deal with interest payments in serving that debt," he said. "Everything has to be on the table…maybe [if we] focus on getting rid of all the woke policies in our military we would have the money to make sure our troops get the pay raise they deserve. We would have the weapon systems and training so we are ready to deal with our adversaries. That's what we want to focus on."

Jordan also spoke out about President Joe Biden's Sunday visit to the border, telling Fox News that there is a "whole different mindset" from the Biden administration than there was in former President Donald Trump's.

"Until they are willing to work on those kinds of policies, in the Judiciary Committee, we will come up with an immigration enforcement bill and we will pass that bill," said Jordan. "We will see if the White House wants to work with us. We will see if Chuck Schumer in the Senate wants to work with us. We are determined to pass that out of the Judiciary Committee which has primary jurisdiction over immigration policies."