Fox News' Mark Levin said House Republicans' prolonged vote for speaker reminded him of how the nation's Founding Fathers engaged in months of heated debate before coming to a consensus on a final draft of the Constitution.
Levin read part of Benjamin Franklin's speech to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to highlight how the young delegates came together despite disagreements in his opening monologue on "Life Liberty & Levin."
"When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views," Franklin wrote. "From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected? And therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does now; I think it will astonish our enemies who are waiting with confidence to hear that our counsels are confounded, like those of the builders of babble, and that our states are on the point of separation only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats."
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He continued, "Much of the strength and efficiency of any government in procuring and securing happiness to the people depends on opinion on the general opinion of the goodness of the government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, that for our own sakes, as a part of the people and for the sake of our posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution."
Levin argued Franklin's words sum up what happened on the House floor after Republicans spent five days and 15 rounds of votes nominating different candidates and requiring different concessions and edits to a rules package before ultimately coming to a consensus and electing Kevin McCarthy.
The "Life Liberty & Levin" host said democracy was at work during the long discussions and debates, but criticized the six Republicans who voted present in the 15th round giving McCarthy a narrow win.
"We have six people who voted present the other day. Despite the fact that I think all the rules that they wanted into the weeds and into the details they got, but they told us they didn't want McCarthy to be speaker of the House. That's perfectly fine. But the problem is you had an extremely close vote. And if it wasn't McCarthy, it wasn't going to be anybody else," Levin said. "There was nobody else. Nobody else would stand up. And anybody who would- couldn't get the votes."
He continued, arguing the GOP needs to get to work as soon as possible and begin investigations into President Biden and the Justice Department.
"If your majority deteriorates into personal attacks, into getting nowhere, into getting into the weeds about this rule or that rule or another rule, while 10,000 illegal aliens are crossing our border, while fentanyl is killing 10,000 of our young people every month, while the FBI is trying to chase down people who believe in life and are opposed to abortion and threatening parents," Levin warned. "And while the Department of Justice is trying to indict a former President of the United States, and while they're destroying our economic system, and they're destroying our constitutional system, you can all declare victory from what took place last week. God bless you. But if you don't unite to fight tyranny, the people will rise up against you."
