Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas has dropped a tantalizing hint that he's interested in taking over the pivotal position of House Speaker from John Boehner next year.
Asked Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV whether he thought Boehner, an Ohio Republican, will retain his powerful seat on Capitol Hill, Gohmert replied: "It's never over till it's over."
Story continues below video.
Note: Watch Newsmax TV now on DIRECTV Ch. 349 and DISH Ch. 223
Get Newsmax TV on your cable system – Click Here Now
Gohmert, who is vice chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, was then quizzed on whether he was interested in the job himself.
"I hadn't planned on it. I'm running for the RSC chair," Gohmert answered, referring to the Republican Study Committee, a group of House Republicans charged with advancing a conservative social and economic agenda.
Gohmert then added:
"But it's always good when you have choices."
He called the promise by President Barack Obama to exercise executive power to enact a sweeping immigration bill "a matter of great concern."
"One of the things that the people that just poured out to the polls made clear to everybody but the president was that they did not want anybody acting outside the bounds of the Constitution," Gohmert said.
"That was very clear to most everybody, but then magically he was able to hear a message from the people that did not vote, seeming to take that as an indication that they were all for him.
"But I'm telling you, it'll be a disaster if he acts on amnesty, violating the Constitution, violating the law."
Gohmert said that Congress should act to defund any effort by the president to enact the immigration policy in which millions of illegal immigrants would be granted amnesty."
"Just make it a crime to spend money to create the amnesty or to act on the amnesty in any way," he said.
"The prototype for that legislation was from the '74 post-Watergate Congress that just stripped every dime, made it a crime to use any money to help keep troops in Vietnam and that's why they had to be pulled out so quickly.
"Well, we can do the same thing with this. You make it a crime to spend any money carrying this out."
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.