An Arkansas Republican poured cold water on any notions of a possible House Speaker Elon Musk.
With chaos erupting in the House this week over a spending agreement that had to be renegotiated after interference by tech billionaire and Trump confidante Musk, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) faces real jeopardy. Some Republicans, like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), have even suggested making Musk himself speaker in his place.
Such a move is possible as the Constitution doesn't require the speaker to be an elected House member.
But Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), the former chair of the powerful House Budget Committee, told CNN's Brianna Keilar that was not going to happen — not least because Musk himself wouldn't even want the job.
"I want to ask you about Elon Musk because he's the one who raised this demand publicly," said Keilar. "He's wielding a lot of power right now. And what do you think about some of your colleagues being open to him being speaker? Would you support that?"
"Well, I don't — I don't think that's a realistic idea," said Womack. "First of all, Elon's got to want to do it. And I think when he looks at what Mike Johnson has been through, what Kevin McCarthy had been through, what all speakers have to go through, he'll probably find that launching and recovering rockets, building EVs, revitalizing social media platforms is a heck of a lot easier and much more profitable than becoming Speaker of the House."
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Womack also aimed some of his fellow Republicans, including Greene and Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who are calling for the government to shut down until President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in — calling it a disastrous idea, as Keilar noted his state was full of military bases that depend on that funding.
"Shutting the government down is counterintuitive to anything that I believe," said Womack. "I'm a former mayor. So, you know, government is made to work. And like I said earlier, when people say or advocate for a government shutdown, they are ignoring the absolute results of that ... the problem with shutting the government down is eventually it has to be reopened. And under what conditions would it be reopened? If you are able to extract concessions from the other side, then that's one thing. But if they're dug in and they're not going to give, then before long you're going to see the real impact on everyday Americans that a government shutdown actually proposes."
"The results of that, I think, would be disastrous to both the new majorities in the House and the Senate, and the incoming president," he added.
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