Former US President Donald Trump has called on all Republicans in the House of Representatives in Washington to elect Kevin McCarthy as the new chairman of the Congress Chamber. Trump launched the appeal on Wednesday on his online network Truth Social after McCarthy failed to obtain the required simple majority in three rounds of voting on Tuesday, despite conservative Republicans having a majority in the newly constituted House of Representatives.
A number of far-right Trump supporters in the Republican faction have refused to support McCarthy because they see him as too moderate. Referring to the majority in the Congress Chamber that his party won in the midterm elections in November, Trump wrote: “Republicans, do not turn a great triumph into a gigantic and embarrassing defeat.” It is now time for “all our great Republican members” of the House of Representatives to “vote for Kevin”.
Up to 20 Republican lawmakers refused to support McCarthy on Tuesday. After the three failed votes, the chamber had adjourned to Wednesday. Even if McCarthy were ultimately to be elected, it would already be an embarrassment of historic proportions: the last time it took more than one round of voting to elect a chairman in the constituent session of the House of Representatives was 1923.
The office of Speaker, known as the Speaker, is the third highest in the United States governmental hierarchy, after the President and Vice President. McCarthy, 57, wants to succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi in this office.
The Republicans have a slim majority of 222 of the 435 seats in the new House of Representatives. Their majority is thus much narrower than they had hoped the Democrats would get from the mid-term congressional elections of President Joe Biden.
In the first three votes to elect the “speaker” on Tuesday, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries got the most votes. But even he did not obtain the necessary majority for the office. Only when the “Speaker of the House” has been elected can the MPs be sworn in and begin their work.
