Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers’ showdown against Matt Gaetz of Florida played a key role in getting California’s Kevin McCarthy elected as Speaker of the House, according to Alabama’s Dale Strong.

Speaking to reporters at his downtown Huntsville office Thursday, an unprompted Strong gave his perspective of the late-night incident on Jan. 6 when Rogers angrily approached Gaetz on the House floor and was physically restrained by North Carolina’s Richard Hudson.

Moments after the kerfuffle, McCarthy secured the votes he needed to become speaker on the 15th ballot.

“It was an interesting situation that will be written in history for some time,” Strong said. “But again, I still believe that communication, what Mike Rogers was communicating to Matt Gaetz, everybody saw it. That right there helped move that process forward. Because if you remember, they were wanting to vote to suspend, which means that we would have left on Friday and then took it back up on Monday

“So there was some pretty heated dialogue about we need to move forward for our country. And then you look at what else happened, that vote to suspend. Everybody thought that we were fixing to leave. And all of a sudden, I remember I was like, we need to keep this vote going the people of our country, we’ve got to get this vote going. And it went from a vote to suspend to vote changing.”

A vote to suspend had narrowly passed before CSPAN cameras in the House chambers caught McCarthy and Gaetz talking and McCarthy slapping Gaetz on the back as if an agreement had been reached. And then McCarthy and some of his allies rushed to change their vote opposing suspending in order to move to an immediate 15th vote for speaker.

Rogers, who represents east Alabama and has since been named chair of the House Armed Services Committee, angrily approached Gaetz after the 14th vote. Rogers leaned forward from the aisle toward Gaetz, who was sitting in the middle of the row, and appeared to be shouting at him. He eventually pointed his index finger at him as Hudson pulled him away.

In a social media statement two days later, Rogers acknowledged losing his temper. Rogers also told the New York Post that he was “exasperated” with Gaetz, who refused to vote for McCarthy for speaker. In the 14th ballot, Gaetz voted “present” rather than voting for McCarthy or another candidate – leaving McCarthy one vote shy of a majority. McCarthy narrowly secured a majority of votes on the next ballot to become speaker.

“The communication that Mike Rogers had (with Gaetz) led to a changed vote to suspend that led to the 15th vote that led to a speaker that led to immediately suspending you know, 87,000 IRS agents to a rules package to a bipartisan bill where 300-plus members of Congress came together and voted on something (establishing a select committee on competition between the U.S. and China). So this is a book that is continuing to be written.”

Alabama’s six Republicans in the House voted for McCarthy on all 15 ballots. Terri Sewell, the state’s lone Democrat in Washington, supported New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries.