UPDATE:The U.S. House adjourned Thursday night without electing a speaker, after three rounds of contentious voting that left Republicans fractured in their support of Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
i've been covering House Republicans for 13+ years. i've never seen lawmakers so uncertain about what comes next. tons of anxiety, nervousness and fear about today, this week and the future.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 3, 2023
The embattled McCarthy drew only 203 votes in two rounds of balloting, and slipped further in a third round, losing 20 votes, in a race that needs 218 to capture the speakership.
Business as usual is out of business.
— Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) January 3, 2023
its time to nominate trump as speaker
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) January 3, 2023
I’m here at the House checking votes. It doesn’t look like the anti-McCarthy bloc is budging tonight
But rumors flying like crazy
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 3, 2023
UPDATE: The U.S. House entered into a third round of votes for speakership late Tuesday afternoon, as Republicans remained divided in their support for Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
203 Republicans are ready to vote to FIRE the 87,000 IRS agents Biden & the Dems hired to target every day Americans. TONIGHT.
19 are holding the country hostage and preventing us from doing our job for THE PEOPLE.
It’s time to elect Kevin McCarthy as Speaker and get to work.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) January 3, 2023
Three ballots.
Three losses for McCarthy.
He is obstructing Congress from getting its legislative work done!
— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) January 3, 2023
Blocking McCarthy is an end in and of itself. It is a complete disruption of long term planning by the establishment and K Street. The alternative doesn’t matter. Beating McCarthy does.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) January 3, 2023
In early third-round voting none of the rebel faction of Freedom Caucus members who want to see significant change in leadership had changed their minds, with Reps. Biggs, Bishop and Boebert all sticking with Jordan as their pick.
As the voting continued, a so-called doomsday scenario seemed to be on the horizon, according to sources.
From House source: 2 very plugged-in Dem leadership aides say they are already talking about “coalition leadership” to divide the House evenly between Republicans and Democrats.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) January 3, 2023
First Gaetz and Good, now Gosar.
They never talk to her. https://t.co/vDDOEs4UdT— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) January 3, 2023
The second round of ballots saw 19 Republicans vote against McCarthy, according to The Hill:
Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.)
Rep. Dan Bishop (N.C.)
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.)
Rep.-elect Josh Brecheen (Okla.)
Rep. Michael Cloud (Texas)
Rep. Eli Crane (Ariz.)
Rep. Andrew Clyde (Ga.)
Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.)
Rep. Bob Good (Va.)
Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.)
Rep. Andy Harris (Md.)
Rep.-elect Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.)
Rep. Mary Miller (Ill.)
Rep. Ralph Norman (S.C.)
Rep.-elect Andy Ogles (Tenn.)
Rep. Scott Perry (Pa.)
Rep. Matt Rosendale (Mont.)
Rep. Chip Roy (Texas)
Rep.-elect Keith Self (Texas)
——— Original article below ————
(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) After being forced for the first time in over a century to move forward with a second round of votes for the U.S. House speakership, Republicans in their position as majority party late Tuesday still remained deeply divided about their support for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as leader.
McCarthy failed to gain the required 218 votes on the first ballot, with at least 19 Republicans holding out their support as deal-making and last-minute scrambling continued.
It wasn’t until nearly 2 p.m. when McCarthy crossed the 200-vote threshold, with new House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., actually tallying more support than the Republican, according to Breitbart news.
McCarthy nabbed 202 votes, Jeffries received 211 votes, while 10 members voted for Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.
Nine members voted for someone else, with Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the presumptive chair of the House Judiciary Committee, receiving six votes, as well as former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., who lost his bid in November to become governor or New York.
Afterward, Jordan took to the House floor and tried to rally support for McCarthy.
“We had better come together and fight for these key things,” he warned, in reference to stopping the Biden regime on several fronts.
“I think Kevin McCarthy is the right guy to lead us,” he continued. “We haven’t always agreed on everything, but I like his fight, I like his tenacity. We need to rally around him.”
BREAKING: Jim Jordan speaks in support of Kevin McCarthy for Speaker after receiving six votes himself on the first ballot. pic.twitter.com/SVAg2ZHeYB
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 3, 2023
Jordan’s fiery speech might have conveyed the wrong message if his aim was to get McCarthy over the finish line.
Several GOP defectors noted that Jordan’s lack of political ambition for himself was exactly the leadership quality they were seeking as conservatives try to roll back the ever-expanding reach of federal power under the Biden administration.
“We need to nominate the most talented, hardest working member of the Republican conference, who just gave a speech with more vision than we have ever heard from the alternative,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said in nominating Jordan for speaker.
Gaetz nominates Jim Jordan and takes a shot at Kevin McCarthy in the process pic.twitter.com/Ns6jBtLMri
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 3, 2023
The first round of voting was preceded by infighting and deal-making. It reached a fevered pitch that had Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., spitting mad after learning about a Republican conference meeting where three House colleagues reportedly tried to strong-arm McCarthy into granting specific committee assignments.
“I find out that it’s my Freedom Caucus colleagues and my supposed friends who went and did that, and they asked nothing for me,” Greene said.
“I am furious,” she continued. “Let me tell you something, while the conservatives that the base supports and believes in, let me remind everyone they’re nor perfect, either.”
Here are a few things I learned in the GOP Conference meeting. pic.twitter.com/Hs58kGLiNS
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) January 3, 2023
Greene suggested that McCarthy’s intraparty opponents were letting personal feelings get in the way of the greater good.
“This is not anything about the country,” she said. “This is all about ‘never Kevin’. They just don’t like Kevin McCarthy,” Greene said.
Other Republican lawmakers said it was all about the country and moving forward in a direction made clear by constituents.
My statement on today’s Speaker vote – pic.twitter.com/eIv9hQGG9U
— Rep. Dan Bishop (@RepDanBishop) January 3, 2023
This is a breaking story with updates to follow
