OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Republican leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday continued to work to convince GOP holdouts to vote for him for Speaker, but those efforts proved fruitless by the end of the day. At one point, the California Republican was seen in what appeared to be a heated exchange with one of them, Republican Rep.-elect Andy Ogles of Tennessee.
Fox News reported that C-SPAN cameras caught McCarthy talking to Ogles on the House floor, likely in an attempt to convince the incoming lawmaker to support his bid for Speaker. Ogles has repeatedly voted against McCarthy and looked to remain unconvinced during their discussion.
“As McCarthy and Ogles go back and forth during the tense conversation, McCarthy appears to become increasingly more animated and frustrated. However, what was said during the exchange remains unclear,” the outlet noted, adding:
McCarthy’s irritation comes after falling short in several rounds of voting for House speaker this week. The California Republican lost the ninth round on Thursday after days of tense negotiations failed to sway any holdouts for the embattled lawmaker.
Since Tuesday, McCarthy has been unsuccessful in securing the 218 votes required to become speaker in [ten] separate roll calls.
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What’s more, McCarthy has lost ground: During the first two ballots, 19 Republicans opposed him but that number has since grown to 21. Other names — Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, and even former President Donald Trump — have been proposed by some of those members.
The chaotic scenes have begun to wear on some conservatives, including former GOP lawmakers like Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, now a Fox News host.
“Look, I got bad news for Kevin’s opponents. He’s got a lot more than 20 friends. So, there are more than 20 people that are going to say, you know what? We are not ever voting for anyone else. Bret, you got a guy who’s got 200 votes and the next leading vote-getter for very good reasons doesn’t want to be the speaker of the House,” Gowdy said during an interview on Fox News.
“And, yet, this kamikaze wing within the Republican Party knows better than 85 percent of the rest of the conference. Jimmy doesn’t want the job for a very good reason. I don’t know what happens. I will say this. They didn’t want a secure border. That is not what the negotiation was over, Bret. It was — there are a handful of people who want gavels and want things that they can’t get based on merit, and they can’t get it based on intelligence, but they want it given to them by the speaker of the House, and Kevin said no,” Gowdy added.
“Fox & Friends” morning co-host Brian Kilmeade also vented his frustration earlier this week after successive failed speaker ballots, suggesting that some Republicans are thinking only of themselves.
“If they said ‘Hey, listen, he won’t do anything on the border. He’s not doing anything with Hunter Biden. He is not going to do anything to go reduce spending.’ None of this is true, so it’s almost as if they’re debating things that are their egos, nothing to do with America. I’m not even talking about Republicans. Republicans or Democrats. They can’t grab onto anything except for, I guess, they want to get a little bit more notoriety in their lives,” he said.
He was also furious with the concessions McCarthy had to make in order to secure some of the votes that are needed for him to become Speaker.
“How are you supposed to do your job?” he said. “You have over 200 people you are going to be representing. If five don’t like what you do, then you are out… You can’t kiss everyone’s butt in order to do that job. You have got to do what’s better for the whole, or dare I say, better for the country.”
They then showed a video of Rep. Bob Good saying that McCarthy’s bid for Speaker was dead the day before. Kilmeade suggested that Good held a grudge against McCarthy for not endorsing him in the primaries.
“You should not take this job if it’s about your ego and your own personal agenda. The whole thing should be service for the country and the subset is your party. Please explain to me how this helps your party. You are looking like idiots in front of the country,” the host said.
