Conservative columnist Jeffrey Lord said Republicans should consider outsiders for Speaker in an interview with radio host Steve Malzberg on Tuesday: “They have all sorts of leeway here. I mean one of the things that people may not be familiar with is you don’t have to be a member of the House of Representatives to be elected Speaker. They could reach out to, I’ve heard several names, now former N.Y. Congressman Lee Zeldin.. who ran a very hot race for Governor of New York. He could be elected. They could bring back Newt Gingrich if they chose to do so. They could nominate you, me, I mean here’s any number of people they could nominate who are not members of the House of Representatives. Now, will they do that? There’d have to be a sort of a ground swell here for whoever that might be. But there’s all kinds of possibilities out there.”
