俄亥俄州共和党众议员戴夫·乔伊斯周日表示，他不想被卷入对唐纳德·特朗普的评论最近呼吁中止宪法关于2020年选举舞弊的毫无根据的指控。
美国广播公司(ABC)“本周”主播乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯(George Stephanopoulos)要求众议院中间派团体共和党治理小组(Republican Governance Group)主席乔伊斯回应特朗普周六在他的真理社交平台上发布的帖子。前任总统错误地断言“大规模欺诈”——这并没有发生——“允许终止所有的规则，条例和条款，甚至那些在宪法中。”
乔伊斯起初拒绝回应，称他不知道特朗普在社交媒体上说了什么，公众也没有“向后看的兴趣”。但斯特凡诺普洛斯进一步施压，乔伊斯最终表示，特朗普的评论应该“在上下文中”理解，但如果他最终赢得提名，这不会阻止他支持特朗普。
“时间还早。我认为会有很多人参加初选...(但)无论共和党提名人是谁，我都会支持，”乔伊斯说，同时指出，他认为特朗普不会赢得2024年共和党总统候选人提名，因为“还有很多其他优秀的候选人。”
“这是一个了不起的声明，”斯特凡诺普洛斯说。"你刚刚说你会支持一个站出来反对宪法的候选人."
“嗯，你知道，他说了很多事情，”乔伊斯说，并补充说，“我不可能真的去追这些候选人的每一个疯狂的声明。”
"你不能站出来反对一个支持中止宪法的人吗?"斯特凡诺普洛斯再次反击。
“他说了很多事情，但这并不意味着它会发生。所以你必须把事实和幻想分开——而幻想就是我们要中止宪法并倒退。我们正在前进，”乔伊斯说。
In this Sept. 29, 2014, file photo, Rep. Dave Joyce speaks at a GOP Get Out the Vote rally in Independence, Ohio.
马克·邓肯/美联社，档案
在采访的其他地方，他告诉Stephanopoulos，随着新赢得的共和党在众议院的多数席位，他领导的小组将专注于餐桌问题。
今年7月，乔伊斯被一致推选为共和党治理小组的主席，他说该小组“决心打破华盛顿的功能障碍”。
当被问及他的团体拥有多大的影响力，以及他们打算如何在一个分裂的政府中使用它时，乔伊斯告诉斯特凡诺普洛斯说:“我们的团体基本上专注于使政府工作。”。“我们不是你每周在电视上看到的那种谈论与国内民众感受无关的问题的人。”
乔伊斯提到了教育系统、汽油价格以及通货膨胀是如何推高生活成本的——所有这些都与即将上任的众议院民主党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯的观点相似他在《本周》节目中提到过周日。
"你们可以合作的具体立法有哪些?"斯特凡诺普洛斯问乔伊斯。
“我们必须制定预算...然后我们必须进行拨款程序。“你们都在谈论不同的事情，但最终，我们将做好我们的工作，提出12项拨款法案。”
乔伊斯是众议院拨款委员会的一个小组委员会成员，该小组委员会负责为联邦政府提供资金。他说，共和党众议院的支出法案将“低于过去四年的水平。”
谈到凯文·麦卡锡竞选议长，斯特凡诺普洛斯指出，下个月他可能不会获得必要的支持，因为在222个席位中，有五名共和党人公开表示他们不会支持他。
“他有选票吗?他将如何到达那里?”斯特凡诺普洛斯问道。
乔伊斯和其他主要共和党人一样，表示麦卡锡证明了他“值得这个机会”，并且“已经做了团结大多数人所必需的艰苦工作。”
“你不能用无名小卒打败某人。现在，你听说我们不会投票给凯文。嗯，那是谁?”他说。
他说，为了完成任务，妥协必须在中间派和强硬派中占上风。
“这些人必须习惯的是，如果我们会议的大多数人都同意某件事，那么这就是你向前推进的方式。乔伊斯说:“仅仅因为五六个人不喜欢，并不意味着我们应该阻止整个事情的发生。”。
他附和杰弗里斯，淡化了一些民主党人加入共和党人支持麦卡锡替代者的可能性。
乔伊斯说:“我认为民主党会投民主党的票，共和党会投共和党的票。”“我认为，最终，凯文将成为下一任众议院议长。”
Trump's call to suspend Constitution not a 2024 deal-breaker, leading House Republican says
Republican Ohio Rep. Dave Joyce said Sunday that he didn't want to be drawn into commenting on Donald Trump'srecent call to suspend the Constitutionover baseless claims of 2020 election fraud.
Joyce, the chair of the Republican Governance Group, a centrist group in the House, was asked by ABC "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos to respond to Trump's post on Saturday on his Truth Social platform. The former president wrongly assertedthat the "massive fraud"-- which did not occur -- "allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."
Joyce initially declined to respond, saying he didn't know what Trump said on social media and that the public wasn't "interested in looking backwards." But Stephanopoulos pressed further,and Joyce ultimately said that Trump's comment should be taken "in context" but that it wouldn't prevent him from supporting Trump if he ends up winning the nomination.
"It's early. I think there's going to be a lot of people in the primary ... [but] I will support whoever the Republican nominee is," Joyce said while noting he didn't think Trump would manage to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination because there are "a lot ofother good quality candidates out there."
"That's a remarkable statement," Stephanopoulos said. "You just said you'd support a candidate who's come out for suspending the Constitution."
"Well, you know, he says a lot of things," Joyce said, adding, "I can't be really chasing every one of these crazy statements that come from any of these candidates."
"You can't come out against someone who's for suspending the Constitution?" Stephanopoulos pushed back once again.
"He says a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that it's ever going to happen. So you got to [separate] fact from fantasy -- and fantasy is that we're going to suspend the Constitution and go backwards. We're moving forward," Joyce said.
Elsewhere in the interview, he told Stephanopoulos that with a newly-won Republican majority in the House, the group that he leads will focus on kitchen-table issues.
In July, Joyce was unanimously elected chair of the Republican Governance Group, which he has said is "hellbent on breaking through Washington's dysfunction."
"Our group is basically focused on making government work," Joyce told Stephanopoulos when asked about how much leverage his group holds and how they plan to use it in a divided government. "We're not the people who you see on TV every week talking about issues that aren't germane to what the people are feeling at home."
Joyce cited the education system, gas prices and how inflation was driving up the cost of living -- all similar to what incoming House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffriesmentioned in his own appearance on "This Week"on Sunday.
"What are the specific pieces of legislation you can work on together?" Stephanopoulos asked Joyce.
"We have to set a budget ... and then we have to do the appropriations process," he said. "You all talk about different things but at the end of the day, we're going to do our job and put 12 appropriations bills out there."
Joyce sits on a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee responsible for funding the federal government. He said the spending bills in a Republican House will be "lower than what's happened in the last four years."
Shifting to Kevin McCarthy's bid for speaker, Stephanopoulos noted that he may not have the necessary support next month with five Republicans in the 222-seat majority having said publicly they won't back him.
"Does he have the votes? How will he get there?" Stephanopoulos asked.
Joyce, like other leading Republicans, said McCarthy proved he "deserves the opportunity" and "has done the hard work that was necessary to bring together the majority."
"You can't beat somebody with nobody. And right now, you hear that we're just not going to vote for Kevin. Well, then who?" he said.
He said compromise would have to prevail among centrists and hardliners in order to accomplish things.
"What these people got to get used to is that if a majority of our conference agree to something, then that's how you move the ball forward. And just because five or six people don't like it doesn't mean that we should hold up the whole thing," Joyce said.
Echoing Jeffries, he played down the possibility that some Democrats would join Republicans in backing an alternative to McCarthy.
"I think the Democrats are going to vote for Democrats, Republicans will vote for Republicans," Joyce said. "And I think, at the end of the day, Kevin will be the next speaker of the House."
