WASHINGTON — Within the sixth vote in two days, Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., again didn’t secure enough support to win the U.S. House speakership, forcing the chamber to adjourn for a number of hours while the GOP tries to hammer out a cope with a bloc of its most hardline conservatives.
A core group of 20 GOP holdouts, who voted for Florida Rep. Byron Donalds in several previous rounds of votes, were again throwing their weight behind the sophomore Republican. While the vote continues to be underway, McCarthy has already lost enough support to lose the gavel lower than halfway through the roll call.
With 222 Republicans within the House, McCarthy can only afford to lose a handful of them and still win the 218 votes mandatory to take the gavel.
All 212 Democrats voted for that party’s incoming Minority Leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. The chamber adjourned until 8 p.m. ET.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., renominated Donalds within the fifth round of voting before asking McCarthy to withdraw his name.
“You’ve got been having my favorite president call us and tell us we’d like to knock this off,” Boebert said on the House floor, referring to former President Donald Trump. “I feel it actually must be reversed. The president needs to inform Kevin McCarthy that, ‘sir, you do not need the votes and it is time to withdraw.'”
U.S. Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert (R-CO) delivers remarks within the House Chamber throughout the second day of elections for Speaker of the House on the U.S. Capitol Constructing on January 04, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Images
Together, Donalds and Jeffries marked the primary time that two Black Americans have ever been nominated for House speaker.
Donalds, who was nominated by Texas Republican Chip Roy, told reporters outside the chamber that he would reinstate a House rule to “vacate the chair” if he were elected. That will make it easier to interchange the longer term House speaker.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made it harder to alter House leadership by requiring a celebration leader or a majority vote by one party to force the vote. Donalds said any member of the chamber needs to be allowed to call for a vote on the House leader.
“This was a mainstay rule in our chamber that empowered all of the members of Congress,” said Donalds, who on Tuesday had publicly shifted his support away from McCarthy. “And Nancy Pelosi is the one who stripped it. And so we predict it is crucial for our institution to operate appropriately on behalf of the American people to place it back in place.”
When asked about national security concerns while Congress in limbo, Donalds said a hypothetical threat shouldn’t affect the voting process.
“I’d anticipate (President Joe Biden) would act to secure the homeland to handle the American people,” he said. “With regards to leveraging money to be spent in response, that is something the members would must put into their calculus as well. But that doesn’t suggest that we should always speed up our business here for some (hypothetical) that will exist in some unspecified time in the future.”
Democrats could help McCarthy by withholding their votes, which would cut back the variety of votes he needed to win House Speaker, in line with the Intercept. But former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pelosi and others have reportedly dismissed that out of hand.
Pelosi told reporters outside the House floor earlier Wednesday that the Republican chaos revealed “an absence of respect for this institution.”
“There’s an absence of respect for the sworn duty all of us must defend the Structure and get the job done for the American people,” she told reporters within the Capitol on Wednesday.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is seen on the US Capitol in Washington, DC on December 21, 2022.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
Little appeared to have modified, publicly or privately, between Tuesday and Wednesday. Each McCarthy’s allies and his opponents delivered effectively the identical message in interviews Wednesday that they’ve been for weeks: We’re not going to budge.
One exception to the stalemate was a fresh endorsement for McCarthy from Trump, who on Tuesday afternoon had initially sounded an uncertain note concerning the political way forward for one in every of his most loyal allies in Congress.
“REPUBLICANS, DO NOT TURN A GREAT TRIUMPH INTO A GIANT & EMBARRASSING DEFEAT,” Trump posted on his Truth Social website Wednesday morning. “IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE, YOU DESERVE IT. Kevin McCarthy will do a very good job, and possibly even a GREAT JOB – JUST WATCH!”
Despite Trump’s broad support amongst conservative Republican voters, it was not clear his latest endorsement would move the needle for any of the holdouts in Congress. While the group of 20 far-right Republicans are all close Trump allies, the previous president’s name and his “America First” message have been notably absent from the intraparty GOP debate raging behind closed doors.
McCarthy himself was tight lipped Tuesday and into Wednesday, and he declined to provide interviews or take his message to the airwaves or social media.
When asked Wednesday morning what his plan can be, NBC News reported that McCarthy told reporters on the Capitol, “Same game plan as yesterday.”
When a journalist asked how he would get more votes, McCarthy replied: “We’re sitting, we’re talking … I feel we will get to an agreement.”
As a substitute, he authorized a handful of allies to barter with the holdouts, a lot of whom discover with the Freedom Caucus, a loosely organized 40+ member caucus led by Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry, who’s amongst probably the most outspoken opponents of McCarthy’s speaker bid.
It is a developing story, please check back for updates.
