Where is the Congress? Calling McCarthy when he becomes the head of the House, or what he wants to do in the next legislative term

The new House Republican majority is in a fight that could be damaging to McCarthy’s political career and could widen the divide within the party. And the deal-making McCarthy has engaged in to try to win over critics may mean he has a weaker hand to play in his position of authority if he does become speaker.

“I’ve heard from multiple of my constituents who question the wisdom of proceeding forward with that leadership,” Biggs said, adding that there needs to be a “frank conversation” about who they elect for the top job.

The Freedom Caucus isn’t united on whether to make that a hard line for Lauren Boebert, who said it was a red line for her.

— McCarthy may have nothing to offer the renegades to win their votes. They disdain big committee posts and don’t dream of passing signature bills. They don’t care that a majority of the party in the House wants McCarthy. The chaos is what they want, just like it was for Trump. Taking on the “swamp” gets them booked on conservative talk shows, boosts their fundraising and polishes their MAGA credentials.

Members of the House predicted that McCarthy would face a challenger who might expose that he does not have enough support to become speaker.

CNN has yet to project which party will have control of the House of Representatives, though as of Friday morning, CNN has projected that Republicans have 211 seats to Democrats’ 198.

The Tea Party Does Not End There, And It’s Already Doing: An Analysis of the Campaign to Protect the Voting Rights of Mr. Trump

Norman said the group hopes to formalize a lengthier list of all the rules changes they are seeking. They are also pushing to delay next week’s internal leadership elections, though there is no indication McCarthy plans to do so.

Norman said the taxpayers who voted for the representatives in deserve the credit.

Roy nominated Biggs for the party leader in November to take on McCarthy. Thirty members joined him in that preliminary vote, but McCarthy still won handily. Roy thinks he can bring along 10 members if his demands are met, according to CNN. But that still wouldn’t be enough to put McCarthy over the top.

Gaetz said the C team should not start with a slim majority. “We need to put our star players in a position to shine brightest so that we can attract more people to our policies and ideas.”

Some of the Republicans speaking out now have previously enabled Mr. Trump and his policies, either through public support or silence. While they long privately claimed to disdain Mr. Trump’s politics, they were fearful of crossing the party’s base.

The party is reaping political consequences. Key Senate and House races were lost by Trump-backed candidates. Democrats gained control of the Senate with a win in Nevada by Catherine Cortez Masto. Neither party had an unassailable majority in the House.

The New York Post is owned by the conservative media baron Murdoch, and has advocated for Mr. Trump to be thrown out. Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears of Virginia and Robin Vos, the powerful Assembly speaker in Wisconsin — both major Trump allies during and after his presidency — said Mr. Trump shouldn’t be the party’s presidential nominee in 2024.

Republican moderates used the moment to bemoan the party’s plunge into conspiracy theories and divisive issues that light up the right-wing media. Romney was a Republican from Utah and called for a return to fiscal conservatism. Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire said during a SiriusXM Radio interview Friday that Mr. Trump risked “mucking up” the party’s chances of winning in Georgia.

And Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who spoke at a Trump rally in Sioux City days before the election, said on Twitter that it was time to move on from Mr. Trump’s pet issue. He said to stop talking in 2020.

The House Republicans will begin their majority on Tuesday, without a clear sense of their leader, which raises the risk of a floor fight that could disrupt oversight or legislating. On Tuesday morning, the conference will gather one final time before the speaker vote, and McCarthy’s supporters are hoping for a last-minute resolution but are bracing for the worst.

The Senate GOP will meet Tuesday for a weekly closed-door lunch, and both McConnell and McCarthy will be in charge of the leadership elections this week.

When the full House votes next month, he intends to run for speaker, even though he lost the GOP nomination against McCarthy. There are many more Republicans who oppose McCarthy than just one who have yet to make their position known.

Rick Scott is the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and he said it didn’t make sense to have them this week.

What are our plans, what are we trying to accomplish? What do we stand for?” Scott spoke to Fox News. The Republicans in the Senate don’t have a plan and will just run against the Democrats. And actually they cave into the Democrats. Now they are trying to get through an election. We are not done with the things that have happened in Georgia.

The race for House GOP whip – a position that will only open up if Republicans win the majority – was already competitive, though Rep. Tom Emmer, who chairs the House GOP’s campaign arm, was seen as having the edge since he was likely to be rewarded if they had a strong night.

They have been putting together an agenda, they have been measuring the drapes. They haven’t won it yet,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “After the election is concluded, depending on who was in the majority, there’ll be judgments made within their own party, in our own parties, as to how we go forward.”

Behind the scenes, the finger pointing has already begun, and those conversations are likely to accelerate as the full House and Senate return to Washington this week for the first time since the midterm elections.

But others in the party have placed the blame squarely on Trump, whose hand-picked candidates failed in key Senate races that determined control of the Senate. McConnell’s group spent more than any other group in Senate races and that isn’t lost on his allies.

Pat went on to say, that there is a high correlation between big losses and candidates who want to be like Donald Trump. If Trump is the main criteria for selecting candidates, we are not going to do very well.

McConnell and Scott have also been publicly at odds all election cycle when it comes to strategy, with McConnell sounding the alarm about candidate quality while Scott opted to take a hands-off approach in the primaries.

Scott didn’t rule out a challenge to McConnell for the top spot even though he wouldn’t have much chance of succeeding.

McCarthy has been in deal-making mode, but if he does win the gavel, some of the concessions he has made may make it more difficult for him to stave off future challenge to his speakership.

The senior Republican told CNN that political physics states that you can’t appease moderates and HFC at the same time. “If you straddle that fence, you better hope it’s not barbed wire.”

The end of an era for the House Democratic Caucus Chair: an update from the first day after the January 6, 2021 insurrection

Early on Wednesday, Trump delivered the kind of full-throated endorsement of McCarthy that the Californian must believe he was owed after his obsequious support of the ex-president following the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

A separate GOP source said he’s been asking to see which GOP lawmakers have endorsed him in the media, with Trump eager to lock up public support from Republicans for his third presidential bid.

If Republicans can finally agree on a speaker, the same GOP leaders who spread former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election – and who have consistently downplayed the grave threat to the nation posed by the January 6, 2021 insurrection carried out in his name – will take the reins of power in the House.

If Pelosi does not run for the top leadership post, it would set the stage for a major shakeup in House Democratic leadership and mark the end of an era for Washington. The move would kick off a fight for her successor that could expose divisions within the party as other prominent members of the party look to move up the leadership ladder.

The GOP will hold a candidate forum on Monday night, followed by leadership elections on Tuesday, November 15, according to the schedule shared with CNN.

It has been more than 80 years since a potential first-time House speaker had such a small majority. The only first-time speaker in recent times who comes close to McCarthy’s current situation is former Illinois Rep. Dennis Hastert, whose Republican Party entered 1999 with 223 seats. After Newt Gingrich stepped down after the 1998 midterms and Bob Livingston resigned after revelations of an extramarital affair, Hastert had the advantage of being a compromise choice.

The first election on November 30 will be for the next House Democratic Caucus Chair and whoever is elected to that role will administer the rest of the leadership elections.

A candidate needs to get the majority of votes in order to be elected to a leadership position. If more than two candidates run in the same election, no one wins a majority of the votes and the lowest vote getter will be eliminated and voting will proceed to a second round. That process continues until one candidate wins a majority.

How does a black speaker get elected? A Democrat told Bash Tuesday: “It’s not too late, but I’m going to try and get through it”

Emmer told reporters Tuesday that he doesn’t know if a smaller majority will affect his bid. But his pitch to members is similar to McCarthy’s, saying: “we delivered.”

Jim Banks of Indiana and Drew Ferguson of Georgia are competing for the post of Republican Study Committee chair.

Absolutely. Well, you know that I’m not asking anybody – people are campaigning, and that’s a beautiful thing,” the California Democrat told Bash. I am not asking anyone for anything. My members are asking me to consider doing that. Let’s just get through the election.

He’s right. If Hakeem Jeffries is elected, he will be the first black speaker of the House.

Joe Neguse of Colorado, who serves as the co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, wants to replace Jeffries who is term limited.

The race to lead the party’s campaign arm is starting to get figured out after the current chair of the DCCC lost his reelection.

Democratic Rep. Tony Cardenas of California announced his race for the spot on Friday but others are being floated as well including Reps. Ami Bera and Sara Jacobs of California.

Lashing out at the Attorney General in the wake of the Greene-Pelosi-Jacobi-Cheney Correlations

McCarthy’s attempts to court Greene include having weekly meetings in his office, as well as promising her better committee assignments after Democrats kicked her off committees.

Some members of the Freedom Caucus met with McCarthy on Monday in his office in an attempt to get concessions in exchange for their votes.

The current chairman of the Freedom Caucus, a Representative from Pennsylvania, has been involved in the discussions to have the acting attorney general removed. On Thursday, he lashed out at Mr. McCarthy, accusing him of leaking details of his talks to reporters.

Rep. Bob Good, who said McCarthy faces “an uphill climb” to the speakership, said they’ve asked McCarthy to bring to them his proposal for running the House.

Although their primary focus has been on getting rules changes that empower individual members and weaken speaker, that’s not the limit of their issues.

He said they want to change the place to reflect the will of the people and acknowledge how bad it is. It is incumbent on anybody that wants to lay out their vision and change their portion of it to do so.

But hard-right Republicans seized the opportunity to extract promises — and in some cases apologies — from their would-be leaders. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has said she will support Mr. McCarthy and predicted he would give her a significant amount of power in a Republican-led House, asked Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the party’s No. 2, whether he would commit to investigating Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Justice Department for their treatment of defendants being held at the D.C. jail without bail in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

“No, I will not get into speculation,” he told CNN. “Obviously, our focus is on getting it resolved by January 3. Kevin has been having a lot of conversations with members who have expressed concerns.

Two people familiar with the exchange who spoke on the condition of anonymity say Mr. Scalise apologized and said he should not have said anything at that point.

Keeping the Republican Party Afloat After the Jan. 6 Elections: Kevin McCarthy’s Campaign to Be Speaker of the House Minority Committee

The turmoil underscored how Republicans were toiling to find a path forward after disappointing midterm results, and still grappling with the influence of Mr. Trump and his election lies on their party, including the fallout from the Jan. 6 attack. As Mr. Trump himself has received an unusual torrent of internal blame for the string of mid-term losses by candidates he had approved, the former Vice President made his most critical comments to date about Mr. Trump.

“It’s going to be a narrow one,” said Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma. That makes it critical that you have a person with good political skills. There is a person that knows every part of the conference.

Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, is hoping that he can get through a crucial test in his campaign to become speaker on Tuesday despite a disappointing performance in the mid-term elections.

Idaho GOP Rep. Mike Simpson said he’ll support McCarthy for leader, noting the GOP gained House seats the last two elections. “He’s done a good job,” said Simpson.

McCarthy said that it was Delaying that when it came to recruiting GOP candidates. “It’s being prepared to not only defend the majority, but grow the majority.”

A source in the room said Bob Good, a critic of McCarthy, criticized McCarthy for not calling to congratulate him when he won his primary because of some pro-Trump candidates who were opposed by a SuperPac aligned with McCarthy. McCarthy replied that he directed $2 million to Good for his race. The source said that Good had to be cut off from speaking in order to move on to the next question.

McCarthy was presented with a standing ovation from his colleagues during the private meeting. McCarthy promised to remove Democrats from the committees if elected, according to a source in the room. And he underscored his role in returning Republicans to power.

But McCarthy’s allies have recently attempted to convince moderate Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar to switch parties in hopes of padding their slim margins, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. Cuellar did not agree with the idea. (McCarthy’s spokesman said the GOP leader was not involved if these conversations took place and said this is not in any way part of their strategy for the majority or for his speakership bid.)

The head of the National Republican Congressional Committee was pressed at the private forum about his vote in favor of a bill to codify same-sex marriage. His reply was that divisive social issues should not be debated on the House floor.

Kevin McCarthy’s “Young Guns”: Creating History in the California Lottery, Helping Bill Thomas Win $16/c2$

Kevin McCarthy has a story about how his political career began after he had gambled in the California Lottery. I scratched off all three tickets. The most money you could collect was $5,000. I scratch three of them and all three of them say $5,000. And I had never played the game before so I go back up to the checker and say, ‘You know, as I read this: Did I win?’ McCarthy told high school seniors that he was one of the first winners in California. That lucky break led him to invest that money, use it to open up a deli named Kevin O’s, and then sell that business to help pay his way through college. There he started working for his then-representative, Republican Bill Thomas, for the next 15 years. In 2002, he ran and won a seat in the California State Assembly where he was immediately elected party leader. “I don’t want to be called the minority leader, and I prefer to be called the Republican leader.” I’m proud of my party,” he said at the time. McCarthy succeeded Thomas when he decided to retire. McCarthy never won a general election with less than half of the vote, because he only faced token opposition for the seat representing his hometown.

He entered Congress a traditional small government conservative typical of the George W. Bush era. His first speech in the House was against raising the minimum wage. “I came to Congress to work to increase opportunities for all Americans, not to harm workers and small businesses.” Often described as sunny and gregarious, with an insider’s savvy and an obsession with tactical politics, McCarthy was quickly dubbed a young “rising star” in the party, along with then Congressmen Eric Cantor of Virginia and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Together the trio were the minority party’s self-proclaimed “Young Guns” who wrote a 2010 book, went on a book tour, and produced a glossy Hollywood style ad to promote their agenda, and themselves. Conservatives who agree with common sense across the country. They are ready to make history. Together they are the Young Guns,” the ad stated. McCarthy also did the work, he’s credited with helping recruit dozens of outsider candidates to run in the historic 2010 tea party wave, that delivered a Republican majority and with it made him majority whip, right below Cantor who became majority leader. With that majority came a more right-wing, confrontational style of Republican lawmaker, and the party’s “Young Guns” were also now part of the party establishment. The Republican candidate who defeated Cantor in the Republican primary was a right-winger. In the aftermath, McCarthy became majority leader. A guy who spent a lot of time trying to recruit people to get the majority was elected. Look, I’ve always had to struggle for whatever we wanted to overcome,” he told reporters, when asked if he was conservative enough to lead the Conference. House Republicans–still stymied by a Democrat in the White House–continued to take out their inability to get much of anything done out on their own leadership. Far right conservatives led by then congressman Mark Meadows of North Carolina (who later became President Trump’s last chief of staff) led a months long campaign that ultimately forced Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to resign in the fall of 2015. McCarthy announced he was running to succeed him, but he withdrew from the race after it was clear he did not have the support of the conservative wing of the party. “If we are going to unite and be strong, we need a new face to help do that,” he said. Paul Ryan reluctantly stepped in to the role and was kept as the speaker’s deputy.

What was surprising to many observers was how little sway former President Donald Trump seemed to have in this Republican infighting. Trump said the GOP should not turn a titanic into a giant and an Armageddon battle and that Kevin McCarthy may do a good job. In a post, Trump said that Kevin should close the deal and take the victory.

Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, spoke to reporters in the Capitol. “I’m staying until we win,” he said.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska is another Republican interested in finding some Democratic help. He told CNN’s Jim Sciutto that McCarthy may have to start looking across the aisle and give Democrats more committee members in order to get the government running.

You would have better people running if Kevin took his name out. Scalise would probably be the guy,” one GOP lawmaker said.

Others privately fault Scalise for not being more forceful in his support for McCarthy or insisting he would stick with the California Republican no matter how long it takes. Some Republican members think that would hurt him if he ever tries to become speaker.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the conservative set to become the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, went even further, ruling out jumping into the race even though Gaetz and other hardliners have urged him to seek the speakership.

A congressman from South Carolina was in the office of McCarthy and said that he would vote for Andy for speaker. He later added: “All this is positive. We’re having good change, regardless of what happens. And you’ll see more of it.”

Following that secret ballot vote, where McCarthy won 188-31, a bloc of five “hard no” votes strategically began to trickle out their public statements of opposition. And after negotiations earlier last month dragged on, an additional group formalized their demands to McCarthy in a letter – further upping pressure on the Republican leader to cut a deal.

McCarthy has already begun brokering some rules changes to empower rank-and-file members, created a new select committee on China, and vowed to boot some Democratic lawmakers from their committees, as well as sketched out in greater detail his investigative plans.

In a series of new concessions first reported by CNN Wednesday night, McCarthy agreed to propose a rules change that would allow just one member to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker, according to two sources familiar with the matter. McCarthy initially proposed a five-member threshold, down from current conference rules which require half of the GOP to call for such a vote.

GOP Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told CNN of the deal-making McCarthy is doing: “He’s got to do whatever he thinks he needs to do as long as it doesn’t compromise our values as a conference.” If McCarthy supports the demand to add vacay the chair to the rules package, I will be for it.

“I think that’s one of the reasons that we didn’t see a red wave…the idea that people are sick and tired of the noise, and they’re tired of the fighting.” “And I know I get that wherever I go in my district is, ‘why can’t you guys just get things done?’”

Tuesday’s vote may create a kind of drama that was common in the House during the 19th century but has virtually disappeared since. During the Civil War, the House failed to vote for a speaker on the first ballot 13 times. The conflict between the north and south in the decade before the Civil War caused the existing party system to collapse and eventually led to the creation of the Republican Party. One speakership election during that tumultuous decade required 133 ballots (and two months of balloting) to resolve; the final speaker selection before the Civil War began took 44 ballots.

The Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, a Newcomer to the U.S. House of Representatives, as the Speaker of the House Republican Conference

The Democrat from Texas said that some of his GOP colleagues have inquired about him about the idea.

Joyce said some of his members had contacted him about possibly running, but he dismissed it. Kevin is the new speaker at the end of the day.

Democrats chanted “Hakeem, Hakeem,” as their new leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, earned more votes than McCarthy even though the GOP is supposed to control the House.

Jeffries told CNN on Thursday that the Democrats are working on organizing the conference. “Republicans are in the process of organizing the Republican Conference. Let’s see what happens on January 3.”

The retired Republican congressman from Michigan who voted in favor of impeaching Donald Trump stated that he is intrigued by the idea of being a consensus candidate for speaker. The constitution does not say that a current House member has to be speaker.

It would require agreement from all democrats and 5 republicans. He told CNN that he would be skiing, but he didn’t want to go to Washington that day.

In Arkansas a decade ago, Republicans in the legislature overcame opposition from Democrats to get a GOP speaker, said Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman. The case was made at a closed-door meeting by Westerman.

What Will we learn from the next Congress? The challenge of changing House rules, resolving congressional inequalities and restoring order to the House of Representatives

Westerman is concerned about being unable to form a Congress, organize committees and push policy objectives when we arrive on January 3.

Westerman added that the discussion over changing House rules is good for the party. But he added: “I’m not really excited about any type of destructive movement.”

Aside from plotting potential retribution, there is also concern among those who support McCarthy over what kind of deals he could be willing to make in order to secure the votes for speaker.

Mr Norman declined to discuss his call with Mr. Trump, saying it was a private conversation. He said he was still torn about who to support for speaker. Mr. Crane did not respond to requests for comment.

After Nancy Pelosi failed to get the 12 votes she would need to win the speaker’s gavel, she quietly picked off defectors, negotiating deals to get the necessary votes. Ms. Pelosi agreed to limit her tenure, made a promise to implement rules aimed at fostering more bipartisan legislating, and won the support of her sole opponent by creating a subcommittee chairmanship.

The California Republican has already made a series of pledges in an effort to appease the right flank of his party. He traveled to the southern border and called on Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings. He promised Ms. Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments for making a series of violent and conspiratorial social media posts before she was elected, a plum spot on the Oversight Committee.

He has threatened to investigate the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, promising to hold public hearings scrutinizing the security breakdowns that occurred. In an effort to win over the ultraconservatives he has met with them. And on Monday night, he publicly encouraged his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government.

Republicans won control of the House with democratic means. Many of the voters who went to the polls last year didn’t like pro-Trump extremists, so they are giving extra leverage to that kind of person.

Even if the path ahead is difficult to identify, McCarthy will get a second chance on Wednesday to show that he can bring order to his conference and bring control to the new Republican majority. Maybe a day of fighting will convince the Republicans that they are at risk of losing their majority.

The California Republican is fighting a rearguard battle against members who want to make it easier to eject a sitting speaker and he’s appeasing ex-President Donald Trump’s extremism and that of acolytes like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to save a narrow political power base propping up his dream of running the House.

This silence is not surprising. It perfectly sums up McCarthy and many in today’s GOP who seek power at any cost — with no regard for principle or the greater good of our nation.

Who cares if Congress is going through a bipartisan year-end budget crisis? Why the GOP is fighting the rebellious group

This is one reason why the current year-end tussle over whether to fund the government for a full year – a bipartisan framework agreement for which was announced Tuesday night – or for just a few months is so critical since it could dump a fiscal crisis on the lap of a weak and easily manipulated new speaker next month.

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday about Greene’s latest inflammatory comments, McCarthy shrugged them off: “Oh, I think she said she was being facetious,” the possible future speaker answered. His attitude was not a surprise; it was consistent with his attempts to rewrite the history of the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, for which he briefly said Trump bore responsibility.

McCarthy refused to criticize the ex-president for attending a dinner with a white supremacist and making antisemitic remarks about the Jewish people, a move which was similar to his refusal to criticize the rapper Ye for making antisemitic remarks. In a histrionic performance at the White House after meeting Biden and other congressional leaders last month, the House Republican leader falsely claimed that Trump had condemned Fuentes four times, when he hadn’t done so once.

Roy is from Texas. He has been vocal about his opposition to McCarthy for months if the rules were changed to give members more say. Roy said he was not happy about the spending bills passing without debate.

The biggest problem with the bipartisan solution is that McCarthy and the Republicans just won a slim majority, which they tried to separate themselves from Democrats. It would be awkward to join with them now.

As frustration inside the House GOP has grown over a small band of anti-Kevin McCarthy lawmakers, an idea to strike back at the rebellious group has been floated among some Republicans: kicking these members off their committees, according to multiple members involved in the conversations.

It’s unclear, however, whether moderates will actually be willing to follow through with the same hardball tactics often deployed by the far right – especially if it could wind up backfiring for McCarthy. Opposing the rules package, for example, could upend any careful negotiations between McCarthy and his detractors, so GOP sources don’t believe McCarthy’s supporters would ultimately take it down.

While hardliners have laid out a lengthy list of demands for GOP leadership, with a slim margin, moderate lawmakers – largely known as the party’s majority makers – know they can exert equal influence over everything from legislation to investigations. Moderates want to make a statement with the speaker’s race, which is what they believe will set the tone for their new majority, even as they try to balance their best options to counter conservatives without causing the same chaos they’ve accused McCarthy’s critics of creating.

Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, said people should be aware they don’t need to double down on failed policies. “There’s a reason the midterms were the way that they were: people who are left of center, right of center were the most successful.”

The reality of a divided house is acknowledged by one of the few Republican lawmakers to come out in opposition to McCarthy as speaker.

He told CNN that they are in a community of fate. The ship will not leave if five people won’t row in that direction. That is true on impeachment, on speakership vote, on the budget, and on policy choices.

Some of the questions unanswered are what other deals are going to be cut, what guarantees are going to be made, and what concessions are going to be made. Womack asked. “We got to be careful that we don’t give a lot of that leverage away.”

Where are we heading? Where do we stand, where are we going? Why do we need to go? What can we do about it?

McCarthy held a meeting to allow his members to debate the rules changes and concessions even if there was no resolution on the motion to oust the chair.

The private deal-making part of the process is still preached by members, as well as emphasizing the conference will come together when the new Congress begins. To that end, the Republican Governance Group recently sent a letter urging their colleagues to unite behind McCarthy.

“It shouldn’t be a surprise that Republicans are out there having conversations and talking about different points of view,” GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida told CNN.

During the high-stakes negotiations, some people from competing groups had time to have some fun. Burchett hosted a Christmas party in his office this week, where all corners of Capitol Hill came together, including some anti-McCarthy lawmakers. At least one time, he rode the skateboard of Gaetz’s wife, among the Mountain Dew fountain and “charcuterie plate” composed of Cheez Whiz and Ritz crackers.

Rep. Blake Moore, a Utah Republican who identifies himself as part of the governing wing, said at the end of the day, the various factions actually agree on most things and dismissed the idea it would be tense next year.

“I’ve said this over and over again: there is not this, like, enormous amount of drama,” Moore told CNN. I’ve talked to members of the House Freedom Caucus about what they agree on. And it’s an enormous amount.”

On Friday, McCarthy took to the air to argue that the detractors were threatening to put the entire House Republican agenda in peril, such as getting a new select committee on China up and running. McCarthy will only lose four GOP votes if all members show up and vote for a particular member.

McCarthy’s dire warning comes as the five GOP members – Gaetz, Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Bob Good of Virginia and Matt Rosendale of Montana – have warned they may vote as a bloc on January 3, meaning they’ll all vote the same way.

You only have so much time to get out and govern during a presidential year, McCarthy said. You want to start running. If you lose a quarter, you don’t start strong. So you don’t get new, stronger candidates. You can’t give the candidates more resources to get their message out.

“I’m friendly with a lot of those people who are against Kevin. I think almost every one of them are very much inclined toward Trump, and me toward them. But I have to tell them, and I have told them, you’re playing a very dangerous game,” Trump said. “You could end up with some very bad situations. I use the same example as you mentioned. You understand what I’m saying? It could be a big deal.

In certain respects, Trump is facing a dilemma many other presidents and legislative leaders have encountered before. The political playing field was shifted by these leaders, and they are inspiring a younger generation of politicians to do the same. Former Speaker John Boehner, himself part of the Gingrich generation of Republicans that rocked Washington by abandoning old norms of governance and promoting a much more aggressive version of partisanship, repeatedly clashed with the Tea Party legislators he opened the doors of power to.

McCarthy suggested on a phone call that Trump should resign after the January 6, 2021, insurrection, which was recorded. But the two quickly made amends with McCarthy traveling to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida just a few weeks later.

The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight… Except At One Another, and Why we are Seeing Too Much in a Low-Energy Campaign

Delving into “GOP dysfunction since Election Day,” the editorial board said, “Republicans are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight – except at one another.”

The feelings are high, he said. We are in a situation where we have to deal with funding the government, and there are different opinions on how to do that. I get that. But in the end, I think it’ll get done and I think it will set the stage for next year and it seems to be at least in the House next year, that would be an advantage for them. They will start with a clean slate.”

“We’re enduring the silly season of a campaign. It’s over for most of us when we get elected. But he’s running for speaker of the House, so the silliness is still evident,” he said.

And some of McCarthy’s fiercest critics, including Reps. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, told CNN they see the five-person threshold as still too high, underscoring the significant challenge McCarthy faces as he works to lock down the speakership.

A five-person threshold, however, may be too low for the moderate wing of the party, some of whom have privately suggested they would be willing to agree on a 50-person threshold.

The Devil Is in the Details: The Case for a Special Panel to Investigate Trump’s Charges on Multiple Criminal Statutes

All of this will be a major topic for discussion during a crucial conference call on Friday afternoon that McCarthy scheduled with the various ideological caucuses in the House GOP, just four days ahead of the January 3 speaker’s vote.

Norman said that the devil is in the details. “Until the details are spelled out, in writing and sealed with social media posts, people will not move on votes.”

I’m positive that the Justice Department will do the right thing. Kinzinger said that he thinks Trump should be charged. “If he is not guilty of a crime, then I frankly fear for the future of this country.”

If this isn’t a crime, I don’t know what to think. The Illinois lawmaker told Dana Bash on CNN that a president can do and can’t do anything if he causes an insurrection and isn’t held accountable.

Kinzinger was on the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot. The panel concluded its work last month and laid out a case for the DOJ and the public that there is evidence to pursue charges against Trump on multiple criminal statutes.

Trump was accused of obstructing an official proceeding, defrauding the United States, making false statements, and assisting or aiding an insurrection, according to the committee. The panel said in its executive summary that there was evidence of seditious conspiracy and conspiring to harm or impede an officer.

In practice, the referral is effectively a symbolic measure. It does not require the Justice Department to act, though special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump, has requested evidence collected by the select committee.

The Future of the Country is Until Donald Trump Corrects: Adam Kinzinger – The Reason Donald Trump stayed in Mar-a-Lago

Kinzinger told Bash that the GOP is not the future of the country unless it corrects.

He said that Trump is still alive because of Kevin McCarthy. After January 6 he came to Mar-a-Lago and resurrected Donald Trump. He is the reason Donald Trump is still a factor.”

“I feel honored to be at this moment in history and to have done the right thing,” said the congressman, who has faced intraparty criticism for his stance on Trump.

The Illinois Republican, who did not seek reelection last year, said he would not do “one thing differently” but would not miss being in Congress. Kinzinger said it would be fun to debate Trump but he won’t run for president in 2024.

“I know who I work with in Congress. There is a group of people that are middle class. Kevin Brady from Texas talked on “Fox News Sunday” about how they don’t see them or hear them much because they are serious about their jobs.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/01/politics/adam-kinzinger-donald-trump-january-6/index.html

The Conference Call for Rep.-elect George J. Santos: Where is he? Where can he go? Where does McCarthy want to go?

I think Kevin McCarthy is aware of the conference. He’s worked with folks across the whole spectrum,” Brady said. I’m optimistic he can pull together the final votes.

The conference call is happening as McCarthy tries to get at least 218 House Republicans to back his proposal in the upcoming vote, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

Dean Obeidallah was an attorney and is now host of the daily show on the radio. Follow him @[email protected]. His opinions are not those of the commentary. View more opinion on CNN.

GOP Rep.-elect George Santos has been making headlines since December 19 — when The New York Times published its jaw-dropping article documenting his litany of false claims about his work experience, education and just about everything in between. (Santos later described these falsehoods as “resume embellishment” but admitted to misrepresenting his employment and educational background.)

Santos also claimed that his grandparents fled the horrors of the Holocaust as Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Belgium — only to have this version of his family background contradicted by a review of genealogy records. Santos’ campaign did not respond to CNN’s request.

Federal and state authorities have started criminal investigations intoSantos over his finances and fabrications. When he first ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2020, Santos reported he had no assets, yet somehow he was able to lend his 2022 campaign $700,000.

It’s likely McCarthy has declined to condemn Santos because the California lawmaker is so desperate to secure the 218 votes he needs to be elected speaker when the new Congress is sworn in on Tuesday. The scandal has distracted him from his earlier pledges to support McCarthy’s speakership bid. Given the incoming House GOP majority will be a razor-thin four votes, McCarthy needs Santos’ support if he is to have any chance of becoming speaker.

McCarthy has also criticized the Biden administration’s border policy and played up accusations on Fox Business that the FBI worked to suppress news stories hurtful to Democrats.

Imagine if an incoming Democrat in Congress was implicated in a scandal. McCarthy likely would be screaming about how this representative-elect should not be in Congress and how the Democratic leadership needed to denounce this politician.

The GOP Googsland: First-Time Speakers Who Have Few Voting Years After Pelosi and Boehner

Although no first-time speaker has gotten the job with less than 218 votes in at least 110 years, it’s happened a number of times for recent sitting speakers. Last Congress, Pelosi was reelected speaker with 216 votes. It was the same for Boehner in 2015. In the last century, five speakers have been elected with less than 218 votes.

A CNN/SSRS poll last month found that his net favorable (i.e. favorable minus unfavorable) rating was +30 points among Republicans. That is certainly not bad. McConnell has low ratings among Republicans. But a net favorability rating of +30 points isn’t really good either.

McCarthy has the second-lowest net favorability rating among his own party members of all first-time potential speakers in the last 28 years. Gingrich had a – 24 points in late 1994. Others such as Boehner (in late 2010) and Nancy Pelosi (in late 2006) had net favorability ratings above +50 points among the party faithful.

Either way, all of this GOP angst is a pretty decent consolation prize for Democrats after losing the House majority. If nothing else, they’re watching a Republican Party that can’t seem to get its act together after a historically bad midterm for an opposition party.

Four days before the House speaker vote, when his critics were still noncommittal about their support for his speakership bid, even after the California Republican had offered a number of key concessions – including making it easier to oust the sitting speaker – he attempted to give them the hard sell.

But now with just one day to go, a group of at least nine Republicans have made clear that they’re still not sold – despite McCarthy’s warning and even after he gave in to some of their most ardent demands, which he outlined during a Sunday evening conference call.

We’re getting ready for a fight. It is not the way we would like to begin our new majority, but you cant really negotiate against the position of giving us everything we ask for and not guaranteeing any in return. The centrist-leaning Republican Governance Group is made up of members such as Rep.Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota.

“I give Kevin a ton of credit. He worked really hard to figure out a way forward after bringing everyone in. A way to make this place run better. But I get the feeling that not everyone is negotiating in good faith.”

McCarthy worked the phones with critics and supporters to find consensus on rules changes to win over holdouts, during the week in between Christmas and New Year.

The Kochen-McCarthy House Speaker Struggle: The Campaign for a Compromise in the Light of the Rules Package

He can only afford to lose four votes on the House floor, and so far, at least five Republicans have vowed to oppose him, with nearly a dozen other GOP lawmakers publicly saying they’re still not there yet.

The rules package was finalized over the weekend. Ultimately, McCarthy informed Republicans on the conference-wide call Sunday evening that he agreed to the five-person threshold on the motion to vacate – which he billed as a “compromise.”

McCarthy made one last pitch for speaker, with a letter that included more promises about how he’d govern as speaker, after releasing the final rules package later that evening.

That group is still pushing for a single member to be able to call for a vote toppling the speaker, which is what it used to be before Speaker Nancy Pelosi changed the rules, and they also want a commitment that leadership won’t play in primaries.

There are no means to determine whether pledges are kept or broken because there aren’t many specific commitments to be found.

In another strategic move, McCarthy postponed races for any contested committee chairs until after the speaker vote. He said it was to allow freshman members to have input in the process, but other members believe it was a way to insulate himself from potential criticism from members who end up losing their races.

In phone calls and text messages during the holidays, McCarthy’s defenders vowed to him and each other they wouldn’t let a handful of members control their conference.

The Freedom Caucus has been divided over McCarthy, but their opposition is more focused on playing hardball.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/02/politics/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-struggle/index.html

The Battle for a Speaker: A Brief Memorandum on the Bounds and Phenomenology of the House Rules Campaign

A committee in charge of administrative matters sent a letter last week detailing the pitfalls and practical implications of a drawn out speaker’s fight. The memo pointed out that committees won’t be able to pay their staff if the House Rules package is not approved.

If a rules package is not adopted by the end of the month, student loan payments for committee staff will no longer be disbursed, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

The two of them are the ringleaders of the fight to block McCarthy. The speakership stalemate is a symptom of disarray in the GOP, after far-right forces out two previous speakers. It suggests the new GOP House majority will be perennially dysfunctional and – given the capacity of a few lawmakers to grind the chamber to a halt at any moment – chaotic political crises are likely to dominate the next two years.

Even with the race far from settled, boxes from McCarthy’s office were spotted by CNN being moved into the speaker’s suite last week – a standard protocol, but a sign he’s committed to seeking the job.

“It is a bizarre game of chicken where both sides have ripped the steering wheel off the dashboard and are just going pedal to the metal,” one member said of the ongoing standoff between pro- and anti-McCarthy factions.

The House could go into recess to allow Republicans to meet privately, but they’d need to get at least 218 votes to break the floor action. Or the House could continue to vote until someone gets to 218 – a scenario that hasn’t happened since 1923 when Frederick Gillet won the speakership on the ninth ballot. The chamber will vote until McCarthy gets 218 votes, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The frustration of the GOP conference organizers: a report by C.R. Good, J.D. Johnson, S.C. A. Scalise, R.E. Martin, M.P. McCarthy, D.

The Nebraska Republican stated that McCarthy was trying to be very supportive. “He has been public that he is supporting McCarthy. I think someday he wants to be speaker He has to be tactful.

“Obviously our focus is on getting it resolved by January 3,” he told CNN. There are a lot of conversations with members who have expressed concerns.

In a private House GOP call on Sunday, a source said that s Scalise embraced his position as the incoming majority leader and even mentioned McCarthy as the future speaker.

But some of the hardliners are not satisfied, pushing to lower the threshold to just a single member who can call for such a vote – something that other House Republicans fear would be a recipe for chaos and have vowed they wouldn’t support.

If McCarthy doesn’t win the votes of the Republicans, people will be more opposed to rule and operational changes, said another GOP member.

If McCarthy can’t win 218 votes, the hard-liners have suggested a new candidate would emerge but they have steadfastly refused to name the individual – something that is infuriating many McCarthy allies in the conference.

“We shouldn’t be in a hurry to make a bad decision,” Good said, promising a new candidate would emerge on Tuesday. He declined to specify the member and also declined to comment about Scalise.

Rep. Dusty Johnson, a South Dakota Republican, said that he found it “incredible” that the same members pushing for a more “open and transparent” GOP conference are getting behind a “shadow candidate” they plan to “ambush” Republicans with at the start of the new Congress.

Johnson said members are growing increasingly frustrated with some of the holdouts, calling them “chaos agents who are trying to cause trouble.”

One GOP lawmaker thinks that people shouldn’t believe that this is a noble cause. “No one should believe that this is anything other than self aggrandizement. They are trying to push procedures that no one cares about outside of Washington only to give themselves more power.”

Rep. Markwayne McCarthy: Why it takes so long for the White House to resolve the Biden administration, or does it matter what the next two years may hold?

Sen.-elect Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican and outgoing House member, met with McCarthy in his office on Monday. Mullin said that they have been encouraging McCarthy to stay put and that he has been helping to lobby House members to back him.

No matter how they resolve Tuesday’s vote choosing the next speaker of the House, Republicans appear poised to double down on the hard-edged politics that most swing state voters rejected in last November’s midterm election.

Dent, like Davis, believes that aggressive investigation will produce worthwhile revelations, including some that are inevitably uncomfortable for the Biden administration. Dent believes that the hearings can backfire if they are focused on far-right grievances and conspiracy theories. “It’s the way you do things and the tone that matters,” Dent says. “You can find all sorts of issues they are going to want to jump on that … won’t play well With the public. The speaker is going to be in this position to have to mediate these disputes constantly.”

Since then, the only selection that has required more than a single ballot came in 1923, when Republicans holding only a narrow majority comparable to their advantage this year took nine ballots to select their speaker. Then the complication was that a minority of left-leaning progressive Republicans initially resisted conservative incumbent Speaker Frederick Gillett.

“I think he prevails because there is no other candidate with his experience and fundraising ability and at the end of the day the party base will close ranks because nothing happens until you have a Speaker: No investigations… nothing,” former GOP Rep. Tom Davis, who served as chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, wrote me in an email. The majority of the Conference is loyal to him.

But in bending to the confrontational and culture war politics preferred by those members, McCarthy is ensuring problems for the 18 House Republicans who won districts that voted for Biden in 2020. More than half of those are in New York and California alone – states where the turnout in the presidential year of 2024 will likely favor Democrats more than in 2022.

According to the Congressional Integrity Project, a Democratic-aligned group established to respond to the House investigations of the Biden administration, win or lose for McCarthy, it doesn’t matter. “I think the die on the next two years has been cast by giving these people the power and the podium.”

By ensuring that hardline Trump allies such as Jordan and Greene will be highly visible – and authorizing them to pursue conservative grievances like the charge that the FBI has become “weaponized” against the right – Dach and other Democrats believe the House majority will reinforce the GOP’s image as the party of Trump precisely as more party strategists, donors and elected officials are insisting Republicans must move beyond him.

“The real show is going to be these empowered, extreme MAGA types,” Dach insists. “Every day that they are on a committee, every day they are on television, is a bad day for the entire Republican Party.”

Michael Podhorzer, the former political director of the AFL-CIO, notes that the GOP has cumulatively lost enormous ground in those states since Trump took office.

“When he made his inauguration speech [in 2017], there was only one Democratic governor in those five states, only four Democratic Senators, no speaker of the state assembly or majority leader in the senate in those states,” says Podhorzer, now chairman of the board of the Analyst Institute, a consortium of liberal groups. In a month, Democrats will control four of the five states, and nine of the 10 senators and three of the state legislative chambers. Democrats have done nothing but win in states that aren’t going toelect conservatives, he says.

If you are in a place where new Democratic voters believe they have to come out to win again against Trump, then you’re going to be able to vote for one of the midterms.

The Last Days of Congressional Reconciliation: the Case of Scott Perry, the Leader of the Chaos Caucus, and the Fate of the Speaker of the House

That’s unlikely to create many problems for Republicans in the places where they are already strong. In the midterm, Republicans, as I’ve written, mostly consolidated their control over red-leaning America, easily holding governorships and state legislatures in many of the states (such as Florida, Texas, Iowa and Tennessee) that pursued the most aggressive conservative agendas over the past two years.

When nothing changes, as was the case with Scott Perry, a leading critic of McCarthy, he took to social media. He cited the letter, which states “the times call for a radical departure of the status quo — not a continuation of the past, and ongoing Republican failures.”

But nothing else can happen in the House of Representatives until a speaker is elected. It’s the only leadership position mentioned in the Constitution.

Even if a senior GOP source had told CNN that McCarthy would never back down and that they were going to war, McCarthy was weakened by each roll call. The rebels are referred to by some Republicans as the chaos caucus or the Taliban 20.

The tally for the second ballot was 203 votes for McCarthy with 19 votes for GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. McCarthy was nominated by Jordan to show that he wasn’t competing for the job. McCarthy critics voted for Jordan despite the move.

By balking at handing unfettered power to the GOP – and a House majority that would have been workable for McCarthy – voters who wanted a period of calm have inadvertently created a scenario that breeds the instability they appear to disdain.

What has unfolded over the last two months is an all-out scramble for the speakership, which has taken the form of strategy sessions with close allies on and off Capitol Hill, intense negotiations over rules changes and non-stop phone calls with members.

Trump may no longer be in the White House but the circus-style politics that he built on a foundation of rebellion in the GOP is back and has tied Washington in knots again. As a mark of how bad things are, the impasse over the speaker has prevented the GOP from even properly taking power given that lawmakers cannot be sworn in before a leader has been selected.

On a surreal day, the 118th Congress opened with Republicans fighting Republicans, while Democrats – who should have been mourning their lost majority – were joyous at the GOP circus they beheld.

The chamber has been disrupted since the start of the GOP rule, thanks to a mutiny waged by ultraconservative lawmakers who have held fast to their vow to oppose McCarthy.

“I didn’t think we were going to get any more productive by continuing on the day,” McCarthy told reporters late Tuesday. He wouldn’t be dropping out of the race.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said, adding, “We only need 11 more votes to win,” implying that he thinks he can get a number of members to vote present, which would lower the threshold he’d need.

Gaetz said the speaker of the House could be someone who has sold shares in themselves for a long time to get it.

The Congress of Benghazi Special Committee on a White House Floor: Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and the War on U.S. Ambassadors in Libya

Former Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington state – who voted to impeach Trump, lost a primary to a rival backed by the ex-president, who then went on to lose the general election to a Democrat – told CNN’s Jake Tapper Tuesday the rebels were in it for themselves.

McCarthy suffered a string of defeats on Thursday as the House took round after round of failed votes. The longer the fight goes on, the worse it gets for McCarthy as he risks defections and a loss of confidence in his leadership. A source familiar with the matter tells CNN that the House is returning at noon and will hold a conference call Friday morning.

— And Democrats are already trying to make political capital out of it, seeing vindication for their claims that Republicans are still not fit for power and should be kicked out at the first opportunity in the next election. “I just watched House Republicans plunge into utter chaos on the House floor,” Jeffries told Democratic donors in a fundraising email. “This changes everything for Democrats. We now have a chance to show what we can do.

Utah Republican Rep. Blake Moore told CNN on Tuesday that the conference could either be the one who comes together to implement the agenda, or they could allow a few people to stop us from doing that.

Everyone thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable? McCarthy spoke on Fox News. “But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are going down.

The GOP’s motives for conducting the investigation were not to harm Clinton, but to discover the truth about the attack on the American embassy in Libya. Clinton, who was the secretary of state in the Obama administration, was the leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Why does Gaetz feel the need to run away from the senate? Another example of the chaos that lies in the midst of McCarthy’s third term

At the 11th hour, he tried to play tough guy, threatening the defectors with stripping them of committee assignments. That appeared to have the reverse effect of what he and his allies were intending.

Was it worth it in regards to McCarthy and anyone with ambition having to make choices between what they believe and what they’re willing to compromise?

At the end of the day, the job of speaker isn’t supposed to be about one person’s ambition but what they can get done to fix problems in the country, and this is taking place at a time when people are already cynical about the intentions of politicians in Washington and what they are trying to accomplish.

For all the talk in Washington of “Dems in disarray,” this is again another example of the chaos that continues to surround House Republicans. How can they govern if they only have a four-seat majority and need to pick a leader?

The reason: Voting to adjourn would require 218 votes, and Democratic sources say they would actively whip against a motion to adjourn. Plus some Republicans would likely vote against it as well.

The same member said a statement made by former President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning that reaffirmed his support for McCarthy and urged Republicans to back him was basically a wash – while it was more helpful than if he had blasted McCarthy, it wasn’t expected to move the needle.

The opposition to McCarthy may have become personal after Tuesday, meaning there may be little that he can do to turn the tide.

As the votes stretched on Tuesday, the situation appeared to become even more dire for McCarthy, as the vote count in opposition to his speaker bid grew.

“This changes neither my view of McCarthy nor Trump nor my vote,” Gaetz said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, shortly after Trump came to McCarthy’s defense in the Truth Social post.

Long a staunch Trump ally, Gaetz’s refusal to bow to Trump’s desire for a McCarthy speakership raises new questions about the former president’s dwindling influence over Republicans in the midst of his third presidential campaign.

Thomas Balcerski is a Professor of U.S. History at roxmouth College and a long-term fellow at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens. He is the author of a book about the friendship between James Buchanan and WilliamRufus King. He uses the handle Tbalcerski to talk about presidential history. His opinions are not explained in this commentary. It is possible to view more opinions on CNN.

What does this long, strange history of contested speaker elections tell us about today’s divides? The issue of slavery in the territories was a factor that divided the two major parties in the speaker contests of the 1850s. Despite not having a first choice for speaker, the Republicans found a way to fight against the Slave Power by selecting a member of their own party.

In either instance, a compromise of some sort – whether by choosing a new candidate for speaker or by placating the splinter faction in some significant way – has usually been the result. We may live a version of one of the two scenarios if the history is any guide.

In 1855, the race for speaker faced its most serious challenge yet. Without sufficient Democrats or former Whigs to reach a majority, a compromise candidate was found in Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts, a member of the nativist American Party (also called “Know Nothings”). Banks, who became speaker after 133 ballots were held over two months, defeated the Democratic challenger, William Aiken Jr., of South Carolina, who had hoped that a plurality resolution would give him the votes of his own supporters. Banks defeated Aiken on February 2, 1856.

Four years later, the House of Representatives was again divided, with a majority of Republicans looking to place Rep. John Sherman of Ohio in the chair. The plurality rule was used by the Republicans to end the debate. Sherman stepped aside and urged Republicans to back William Pennington, a freshman lawmaker from New Jersey. Pennington was elected speaker after 44 ballots over eight weeks.

There was a challenge against the choice of the first choice candidate, returning speaker of the House Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts. The progressives blamed the party’s existing orthodoxy on the results of the 1922 midterm election, in which Republicans had seen their majority reduced, and wanted to change the House’s rules to allow for more legislation to reach the floor.

Republicans in the House may face similar calculations today. If the battle of the 1850s are any indication, Republicans would do better to pick someone who is acceptable to the whole caucus instead of McCarthy, who has been a supporter of former President Donald Trump. They risk prolonging the balloting for a long time if they don’t.

What do they want? The right-wing rebellion against Mr. McCarthy is rooted not just in personal animosity, but also an ideological drive. The holdouts want to make it easier for them to limit the size, scope and reach of the federal government.

It’s a very small minority of a slim majority that’s kept the House from moving forward and is on the cusp of derailing Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid to become speaker.

They do not speak for the majority of Republicans. The 20 anti-McCarthy Republicans who so far derailed his bid to become House speaker represent less than 10% of the House GOP.

When she voted for McCarthy, she didn’t do him any favors and ate away at his support. She stated on CNN that she wants the House to function differently because hardliners want the debate to be closed and the amendment process to be closed.

Why does the 20 anti-McCarthy Republicans need to be broken down? Rep. Buck says he is afraid the 20 will be broken

The conservative Republican told CNN on Wednesday that he thought the 20 should be broken down. Buck was seen as a possible defector before this week, and he made it clear that the patience with these votes is waning.

He thinks that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana could be a consensus speaker who could speak to the differing opinions of the 20 anti-McCarthy Republicans.

Others would like specific changes. “There are some of the others … who want changes in the rules and there are some others who care about policy,” Buck said. If Steve understands the three needs, he will be able to move forward and take the speakership.

Some people want to stop things. Rep.Norman has said he will not support raising the debt ceiling if it means shutting the government down. That suggests the kind of precarious future funding fights will pose to the economy.

These lawmakers want painful cuts now to end deficit spending. Most economists say that a US debt default could cause the economy to go into a tailspin. A government shutdown is less severe, but they have been unpopular in the past.

Is it time to redraw the swamp? What is happening in Congress right now, when is it going to be different? Rep. Chip Roy, Rep. Tim Spartz, R. Tomkins, and John Bishop

“I really think this is democracy in action,” Bishop said. I believe that if you are not satisfied with Washington as it is, then you can’t do the same thing as we start this Congress.

Bishop said that a specific agenda that Kevin McCarthy is going to go to the mat for, as opposed to poll-tested language, indicates the problem. It has been that way for 14 years, and he has been respected for it.

“Let’s stop with the campaign smears and tactics to get people to turn against us – even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off,” Boebert said on the House floor on Wednesday. I think that it needs to be reversed. The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you do not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw.”

The argument that Republicans and Democrats aren’t the same is made if you watch either Tucker Carlson or Steve Bannon’s show. Carlson often uses the term “uni-party” to blast the funding bills that are signed into law. Some of that is happening in the opposition to McCarthy, a long time member of the GOP leadership.

“Right now I’m holding the line because I think we need this place to operate differently, and that’s not a partisan statement. It’s just something that I believe,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday.

Roy said he and other fiscal conservatives want to prevent the train of the swamp from leaving because it is made up of Republicans and Democrats. He said that special interests come together to push the government funding bills that passed last month to fund the government for the next eight years.

Roy and Perry also talked about the need for open amendments on the House floor, and Donalds has joined the others who want a single member to be able to force a vote on whether to remove a sitting speaker.

The appropriations process does not allow for open amendments and so we can do nothing about it, complained Spartz. She said that she thinks that needs to stop.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/politics/mccarthy-gop-speaker-hardliners-what-matters/index.html

The California Rep. Rodney Miller, R-Ill., Unveiled Tuesday Night on a Republican-McCafee Minority Whistler’s Fate

McCarthy did offer numerous concessions to the hardliners like Roy, including a pledge – which seems impossible given the slapdash way legislation comes together – to give lawmakers 72 hours to read a bill before it goes to the floor for a vote.

He also agreed to allow just five Republicans to force a vote to remove the speaker instead of the current requirement that a majority of Republicans join the call.

Donalds told CNN that he didn’t want the job when asked if he wanted it.

The problem, however, is that Congress has resorted to omnibus bills in recent years for a reason – it has been so polarized and dysfunctional that the only way to get any bill to the president’s desk is to cram all the spending in together.

Mary Miller, R-Ill.: The second-term Illinois representative has been quiet on her vote. But former Rep. Rodney Davis — whom Miller defeated in the GOP primary — told CNN on Tuesday that “I don’t think anybody from Illinois would be surprised by that vote.” Like the majority of other McCarthy defectors, Miller had Trump’s endorsement, denies results of the 2020 presidential election, objected to the 2020 Electoral College results and is a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

The fourth-ballot vote signaled that Republicans were far from breaking the deadlock that has paralyzed the chamber, even after a direct appeal from former President Donald J. Trump, who had endorsed Mr. McCarthy but stayed silent on Tuesday throughout his humiliating series of defeats on the House floor.

There was no move by the endorsement in Mr. McCarthy’s direction. The Republican leader and his allies were going door to door trying to get votes during the fifth vote.

A group of right-wing Republicans coalesced behind Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, as an alternative to Mr. McCarthy.

The California Republican unveiled major concessions on Wednesday evening after he was stung by right-wing radicals who blocked his bid for power in six humiliating votes – a farcical debut for the new GOP-led House.

The moves – just proposals for now that have not been agreed upon – could not only enshrine the chaotic instability of the tiny new Republican majority, they could also make him a permanent hostage of his party’s most extreme voices. With Congress facing critical decisions later in the year including raising the government’s borrowing limit, a neutered speaker cannot force his members into hard votes, and that could cause problems for the US and global economy.

The Republicans cheered when the vote closed because the GOP management in the House is unable to do the only thing it can: choose a leader.

On the other side is a band of right-wing zealots, holding their party, the House and the country hostage – some with no clear objective other than to destroy the idea of governance itself. For them, chaos is the point.

On the fight for McCarthy’s desperation speaker: How much of the House will Congress work in a groundhog day on Wednesday?

But as humiliation piled on humiliation for the California lawmaker, there was the merest hint of a lifeline as a divide inside the anti-McCarthy block began to open.

Several lawmakers who would like to alter the way the House works said they made significant progress in talks with McCarthy. One of their number, Texas Rep. Chip Roy, predicted he could bring over 10 votes if the talks pan out.

The question is whether another day of pointless voting on Thursday will prompt members to begin to consider whether he should step aside for a more universally trusted colleague – perhaps Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, for instance. Many Republicans are complaining that their hopes for quickly wielding power and throttling the Biden administration have been dashed.

While another Groundhog Day in the House didn’t produce a new speaker, it did offer hints on how an endgame in the battle for the speaker’s gavel may develop. It also provided insight into the new balance of power in Washington and how Congress will work (or won’t) in the months ahead.

“If it’s the latter, it’s not as constructive because it shouldn’t be about the personality, it should be about the process, but I don’t know. I have no sense of how many are in either camp,” he told CNN.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/politics/mccarthy-desperation-speaker-analysis/index.html

The House is having a rebirth: what Donald Trump’s rebuke has to do with the politics of destruction, not what it might have to do

Roy argued in floor speeches and interviews that the House is having consequential debates. Under recent Democratic and Republican speakers, normal order and the sequencing of new laws through the committee process and debates on the House floor have been curtailed as severe partisanship and gridlock causes leaders to enforce ruthless party-line discipline.

Some Republicans accuse their colleagues of grandstanding and of using the spotlight to raise campaign cash and to drum up appearances on conservative media. It is the latest example of the anti- establishment wing of the GOP that would like to remove government itself.

The politics of destruction was set into motion by Donald Trump’s vow to drain the Washington swamp. At the start of the Trump administration, Steve Bannon used to say the deconstruction of the administrative state was what he was talking about. The problem for McCarthy is how to negotiate with someone whose main ambition is chaos, and he has cozied up to Trump.

It was the kind of social media blast that once would have had Republican members leaping into line. But no longer. It didn’t appear to change a single vote.

Her rebuke was the latest sign that after two years in political exile, a disastrous intervention in the midterms and a low energy 2024 campaign launch, Trump’s juice isn’t what it once was in GOP ranks in the House. This sort of insubordination is not likely to have taken place in Mar-a-Lago, as the ex president has a good relationship with the Republican base.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/politics/mccarthy-desperation-speaker-analysis/index.html

Democrats aren’t Ready for a Leader: Predicting the Case for Speakership Negotiations in the House of Representatives to the Second Session

In the US House, it can take weeks or months for a leader or governing majority to be formed, while in Europe or Israel it can take days or weeks to arrive at a leader and a majority.

The chaos in an event in Kentucky on Wednesday was embarrassing for the country, as it highlighted bipartisan political leadership over his infrastructure package.

He also agreed to allow for more members of the Freedom Caucus to serve on the powerful House Rules Committee, which dictates how and whether bills come to the floor, and to vote on a handful of bills that are priorities for the holdouts, including proposing term limits on members and a border security plan.

But even after proposing major concessions to his hardline opponents late Wednesday, it remains unclear if the California Republican will be able to lock in the 218 votes he needs to win the gavel, and patience is wearing thin among lawmakers as the fight drags on.

Talks are continuing among Republicans after negotiations aimed at winning over McCarthy opponents picked up steam on Thursday. Key House GOP negotiators said they were moving closer to an agreement that would bring McCarthy closer to 218.

Texas Rep. Chip Roy, one of the conservatives who has voted against McCarthy’s speakership bid, told GOP leaders that he thinks he can get 10 holdouts to come along if ongoing negotiations pan out, according to GOP sources familiar with the internal discussions, and that there are additional detractors who may be willing to vote “present.”

There were many people that were involved in the discussion and now some of them are looking at where they want to go with it.

One moderate Republican told CNN Thursday morning that they aren’t happy about the concessions, though they are willing to have “discussions” about them.

“I don’t like the rules but am willing to hear discussions. They are a mistake for the conference. These handful of folks want a weak speaker with a four-vote majority. The public will not like what they see of the GOP, I fear,” the member said.

The core of this group are anti-establishment, ideologic skeptics of government. It should be smaller, do less, spend less and be a hard line on immigration. Most were endorsed by former President Donald Trump, and many are election deniers, but even Trump’s influence is only going so far in this fight.

Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C.: The House Freedom Caucus member was one of seven members to sign a “Dear Colleague” letter outlining concerns, like “increasingly centralized decision-making power” that result in “massive, multi-subject bills that are unable to be amended or fully read, all driven by supposedly must-pass defense and appropriations measures” that amass large debt.

The seven others who signed the letter were Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Democratic Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Republican Representative Chip Roy of Texas, and Democrat Eli Crane of Arizona.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.: The firebrand narrowly won reelection. She and others want a single member to be able to bring a motion to vacate the speaker.

Josh Brecheen, R-Okla.: The rancher and construction company owner is a new member of Congress, who aligned himself with the House Freedom Caucus during his campaign.

Michael Cloud, R-Texas: Cloud cites wanting to get the country on a “path toward fiscal responsibility” and notes that he’d “worked for months in high hopes and good faith that our conference would chart a course away from the status quo.”

Andrew Clyde, R-Ga.: The gun shop owner, who sent an encouraging text about Trump to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows days after Jan. 6 and previously called McCarthy “a friend,” was one of the seven signers of the December “Dear Colleague” letter that outlined fiscal issues and large spending bills as a major problem.

Paul Gosar, R-Ariz.: Gosar is one of the most controversial members of Congress. He’s defended white nationalists and spoken to them and was censured after posting an anime video depicting the killing of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Biden. One of the leaders of this insurrection against McCarthy was the one who nominated an alternative. Gosar was on the House floor on Tuesday discussing with other Democrats if they would help McCarthy get elected. Ocasio-Cortez said she told the faction: “Absolutely not.”

Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.: One of five freshman members to vote against McCarthy, Luna was one of the nine to sign the Sunday letter that said McCarthy’s negotiations have been “insufficient.”

Kevin McCarthy, the Capitol Raiders, and the Patriots: When President Trump and the House Republicans Rejoind in Their Own Party

In the past couple of years since leaving policing, some of the conclusions I’ve drawn have had to do with the former president who set the disastrous riot on January 6 in motion. And a lot of my now-negative opinions about him, not surprisingly, have to do with the emotional and physical trauma that I and my brother and sister officers suffered that day. Values I’d always lived by as an officer – like “back the blue” – were literally hurled back at me by the same mob that was viciously trying to cut us down.

I almost died defending the US Capitol a couple of years ago, when armed insurrectionists tried to overthrow the government and there was a violent uprising that also included House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. Two years ago, the violent insurrectionists almost took my life, ignoring my pleas to have kids.

There are a few examples. Without long overdue intervention by Republican top brass, the frightening trend towards violent rhetoric seems certain to continue.

The conspiracists have lots of support in the public, as political attacks are on the rise across the nation, and millions of Americans believe that the use of force would be justified to restore Trump to the presidency. It is necessary to reverse this dangerous trend.

The incoming GOP House leadership needs to reject the violence and rhetoric of their own party. That starts with condemning Trump, who remains the de facto leader of the Republican Party. The incoming Speaker must demand that members of their party never again amplify language in ways that put the lives of their peers or law enforcement at risk.

There has been no shortage of such reprehensible behavior in recent months, starting with McCarthy himself. McCarthy used to be the GOP leader and he once said that President Trump was in charge of the Capitolrioters who were ginned up. However, after several days, he accepted that President Trump had been in charge of the rioters. He traveled to Mar-a-Lago with only one eye on the speaker’s gavel, trying to get both the president and the election deniers in his own caucus.

Since then, influential GOP House members have called the January 6 assault a “normal tourist visit.” Some have called for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s execution for treason and shared antisemitic messages on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

My expectation was that outrage and horror over the insurrection would encourage Americans to believe in the belief that political violence has no place in our society. It’s up to Republican leaders to join other Americans who disavow such behavior and the despotic former president who inspired it.

Many of her rightwing allies in the House have promoted the baseless, unhinged conspiracy theory around “grooming.” Small wonder, in the wake of such outlandish statements, that irate protesters are overrunning story hour at their local libraries, and calling for the banning of books from neighborhood schools.

The recent acts of violence that seem to have been instigated by right-wing rhetoric are quite a few. MAGA rhetoric fueled the attack at the home of former Speaker Pelosi and the vandalization last month – allegedly by anti-LGBTQ activists – of the homes of three New York council members over opposition to drag queen story hour at libraries in the city.

Gaetz encouraged voters to arm themselves at the polls and voters were intimidated while they cast their votes. Research shows that MAGA Republicans are more likely to support violence than GOP moderates to advance their political objectives. The FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and there were threats against them on the social networking site.

Two years ago, scores of House Republicans refused to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and many spent years appeasing Trump’s lawless behavior. If the GOP ever gets its act together and picks a speaker, it will be able to take over one half of Capitol Hill.

There were 21 Republican Members who voted against DC and Capitol Police officers like me who were given the Presidential medal of freedom for defending the capitol during the insurrection.

I have never considered myself to be a political person, even though I knew a few people before January 6. I voted for Trump after being turned off by the anti- police rhetoric on the left.

After the election I decided to oppose some Trump-inspired candidates who I thought posed a danger to democracy. I never believed in politicians, but I believe in people. I support new groups demanding sanity and accountability from our politicians.

This week, at an event calling on lawmakers to ramp up the fight against political violence, I’ll join veterans, members of Congress, and the group Courage for America, (which I’ve helped to found and have a leadership role in). Courage for America is joining forces with another, new group Common Defense to call for a renewed effort to combat the kind of right-wing violence that almost ended my life. The Capitol reflecting pool was the location of a group of people who threatened to hang the VP and then chant ” hang Mike Pence” during a protest two years ago.

Protesting Byron Donalds: A Moral Issue in the House of Representatives Bob Good, Lauren Boebert, and Matt Gaetz

Law enforcement was the perfect landing spot for a rambunctious child with no direction, because I was always a troublemaker as a kid. Becoming a cop taught me to stand up for what’s right, and being an investigator taught me to keep revising and refining the conclusions I drew, as I gathered additional information.

At that moment, even though I was surrounded by violent, shouting protesters, all I could see were my kids’ faces: My four daughters are the ones I’m speaking out for.

I want them to live in a country where elected officials are held to account for their actions. Condemning political violence isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a moral one.

From left, Representatives Bob Good of Virginia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida applauded after Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania nominated Byron Donalds for speaker on Wednesday.

Some have strongly suggested that they can, and the California Republican has agreed to many of their demands, including moves that would weaken the speakership considerably and make it exceedingly difficult to pass the most basic legislation, including bills needed to keep the government open and to avoid a default on the nation’s debt.

Ms. Boebert has also repeatedly gone on television to defend the stance against Mr. McCarthy, even as pressure has mounted from Mr. Trump and conservative allies outside of Congress. She doesn’t understand the idea that many concessions by Mr. McCarthy would get him the votes to become speaker.

Bob Good made it clear on Thursday that he would never be swayed by Mr. McCarthy.

Remaining Conservative: How Do House Minority Causality Rules Change When Replacing a Republican Speaker is Obscured? A Response to Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina

They included allowing a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time to oust the speaker, a rule that would effectively codify a standing threat that Mr. McCarthy would be at the mercy of hard-right lawmakers at all times, and could be removed instantly if he crossed them.

Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina has also shown an openness to haggling. When asked if he would be open to voting for Mr. McCarthy after the new round of concessions, he replied: “The devil is in the details.”

Several of the lawmakers who have declined to back Mr. McCarthy have not answered questions about what would be needed to convince them to drop their objections, or avoided a grilling from conservative media outlets.

Representative Matt Rosendale of Montana was among the returning lawmakers who continued to vote for someone other than Mr. McCarthy, along with Representatives Mary Miller of Illinois and Andy Harris of Maryland.

Some of the lawmakers have pushed for votes on specific bills, like legislation requiring term limits for lawmakers. The group has demanded their own representatives sit on the Rules Committee in order to have a say in how legislation is received and considered.

Some McCarthy supporters have pointed out that such decisions are up to a group of Republican lawmakers, not the speaker.

The Rise and Fall of the Establishment in the Trump Era: CNN Viewpoints on the Founders and Next-Generation Algorithms

The CNN political analyst,Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at the school. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including his forthcoming co-edited work, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest lies and Legends about Our Past” (Basic Books). You can follow him on social media. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

Over time, the acolytes demand more and become more extreme than the leader who originally welcomed them into the fold. This is what led to the bomb being thrown against Republicans like Jim Jordan. They were the rebels because he had become the establishment.

A significant part of Trump’s influence was his nihilistic attitude of political combat. He helped to spur a younger, more extreme cohort to step up and demand power. It seems these burn-down-the-house conservatives will do almost anything in pursuit of victory and believe – like Trump – that chaos, instability, and hyper-divisiveness have great political value. And now some of these Trump loyalists might be close to concluding that they no longer need him – or at the very least, they no longer need to follow his every move.

As for Trump, his very influence could end up playing a role in his defeat. Not only is he now unable to sway votes on Capitol Hill, he is likely to confront a number of politicians, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who are capable of presenting a fresher and more polished version of Trumpism without the baggage that comes with Trump. If the GOP is full of Trumpian Republicans who have taken his strategy and run with it, then voters might want to switch to someone other than Donald Trump.

The case for a bipartisan consensus-builder: CNN’s John Avlon on congress and his encounter with the former President Mitch McConnell

Ask about anyone in Washington and they will laugh at you and shake their heads. McCarthy won’t ask for help from Democrats. And Democrats wouldn’t give it to him. So silly.

There are variations of power sharing and moderate speaker upset this year in multiple states, according to CNN analyst John Avlon.

In Pennsylvania , aDemocrat wasnamed speaker of the state House after gaining support from Republicans. Following the vote, he announced he would govern as an independent.

Kasich has seen this process before. He was chairman of the House Budget Committee after the so-called “Republican Revolution” of 1994 and took part in the famous budget balancing of the second Bill Clinton administration, when the Democratic president was forced to work with a Republican House majority.

When Avlon suggested the idea of a bipartisan consensus-builder on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” on Wednesday, former Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania agreed that it is indeed what would happen in a “functional Congress.”

The role of the speaker as a partisan leader is new according to Adam Kinzinger, the moderate Illinois Republican who is now a CNN contributor.

Speakers previously simply oversaw House proceedings. Democrats might want to support a consensus Republican who is not trying to use the House for partisan purposes.

I think that the country could use somebody sitting in that position to say, ‘Here is how the House is gonna work.’ Kinzinger said to go debate. As this roadblock drags on, he said, that kind of out-of-the-box solution could become more likely, “although still pretty unlikely.”

It’s also true that there’s some bipartisanship already in the air in Washington. President Joe Biden appeared with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday to announce new funding to rehab the deteriorating Brent Spence Bridge that ties McConnell’s home state of Kentucky to Kasich’s Ohio.

McConnell doing a photo op with the former President Barack Obama is not the type of thing you would have expected from McConnell, who was very opposed to Obama.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/politics/mccarthy-speaker-vote-stalemate-what-matters/index.html

The tragedy of a broken American government: The story of the riots on the Hill and how the extremism of the ex-president has ruined democracy

The moderate middle of the American electorate would be celebrated if Republicans and Democrats voted for the bipartisan option but the people in the party trenches would attack them.

There’s also the issue that members of Congress wait around for years for plum committee assignments. They know if they left the system it would be bad.

It is impossible for a Republican leader to get ahead of their party’s march to its far-right extremes.

On the second anniversary of the worst attack on democracy in modern history, he’s found out that even that career-enhancer bet isn’t enough to get the vote of Trump’s heirs.

In another surreal scene on the Hill this week, one of those Republicans, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – who has downplayed the insurrection and said rioters would have “won” if she was in charge – is complaining about the extremism of some of her colleagues who oppose McCarthy.

The right-wing media machine and a still-angry base of voters make it hard for disruptor politicians in the ex-president’s image.

The narrow margin was caused by voters being alienated by the ex- president’s claims of voter fraud and the party failing, and will put the majority in a precarious position on must-pass legislation.

According to Boebert, the country was watching democracy in action, even as McCarthy repeatedly racked up around 200 votes from his conference while his various radical opponents could only attract around 20. The Democrats support of Hakeem Jeffries, who got more votes than McCarthy but also short of 218, made it difficult for McCarthy to get a majority of the House.

“This is not chaos. This is a constitutional republic at work. Boebert said this is a really beautiful thing. She’s correct in that the messiness unfolding on the floor is based on rules and procedures – the most basic elements of governing that Trump had sought to disrupt with his efforts to overturn the certification of the 2020 Electoral College votes.

Gaetz’s frustration with the anti-Establishment and anti-Government forces of the Tea Party: How much will we learn from the past?

But her arguments founder on the reality of the rebels’ behavior. Many other Republicans don’t know what concessions the Gaetz group wants, which is a problem since they have vowed to never support McCarthy.

“This ends one of two ways: Either Kevin McCarthy withdraws from the race, or we construct a straitjacket that he is unable to evade,” Gaetz, who cast his vote in the seventh round for Trump, told reporters on Thursday.

The most extreme hardliners will only accept a candidate that shares their no compromise, Nihilistic form of politics that makes governing impossible.

The culmination of anti-Establishment, anti-Government forces first unleashed decades ago by Newt Gingrich was seen in these demands. They were the progenitors of the anti-Washington Tea Party movement. Trump then drove out much of the governing wing of the GOP as he effectively worked to bring down the institutions of government and accountability from inside as president.

Brian Fitzpatrick, a McCarthy ally, told CNN that he was optimistic that a deal could be reached soon.

McCarthy said that there wasn’t a timetable for when he could get to 218 votes after the House adjourned on Thursday. He said that if it takes a little longer, that is fine.

Several members say that they are close to a deal that will attempt to rebuild alliances and trust in the aftermath of a harsh Tuesday morning conference meeting.

Progress Report on South Carolina Rep. Pat McHenry, an Ultraconservative Senator, in Charge of a Majority Breaking the GOP-McKinnon Deal

North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, a key McCarthy ally, said: “The main things we’re talking about are a conservative agenda around spending and the nature of our Republican majority. That’s really the crux of the conversation. That is really the shape of it.

In a big way, rules, structure and processes dictate outcomes in this place. You want to make sure all those things are in place.

The last 36 hours has seen immense amount of effort to get into the substance of the challenges.

They are not talking about specific committee assignments for holdouts, but about their agenda around issues like spending.

In one sign of forward momentum, GOP Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, one of the holdouts, told CNN after viewing a deal in Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer’s office Thursday evening: “This is changes that we want.”

Norman says that a lot of the deal is centered around rule changes such as a requirement to review bills within 72 hours. The deal did not address committee assignments, according to Norman.

McCarthy denied that any members would lose committee assignments and said there have been no talks about giving subcommittee chairmanships to dissidents.

Though they will likely still swallow the concessions, lawmakers and moderates are growing impatient with the new GOP majority and may make it difficult for them to effectively govern.

McCarthy was defiant earlier in the day on Thursday in the face of the stiff headwinds, saying that he will continue to face opposition until he reaches a deal with his detractors.

The election that ended Thursday night after 11 straight losses is now the most lengthy contest since 1858 and Mr. McCarthy decided to compromise with the ultraconservative rebels.