McCarthy needed 218 first-round votes to become president and succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi, but got only 203. “Indeed, support for McCarthy dwindled with every vote,” said US correspondent David Hammelburg. It is the first time in a hundred years that the US House of Representatives needs more than one vote to elect a new president. “Or as CNN summed it up, this is the Republican Party’s Civil War, and it’s unfolding before our eyes.”
The group of far-right Republicans who dislike McCarthy have tried to push forward an Ohio lawmaker, Jim Jordan. Nineteen Republicans voted for Jordan in both the first and second rounds, but he says he supports McCarthy. In the third round, Jordan received as many as twenty votes. Jordan is known as a supporter of former President Donald Trump.
Old politics
Republicans won a House majority in November, but some Republicans think McCarthy is a man of old politics who should give way to a more outspoken anti-Democrat candidate.
According to Hammelburg, it will be very difficult for both McCarthy and Jordan. McCarthy has made big commitments, but that doesn’t impress his opponents. Even hoisting Jordan onto the shield isn’t possible, because he has too little support.’
According to Hammelburg, the Republicans will try to find another candidate. “The Constitution does not require any member of Congress to be speakers must be chosen, so theoretically an external candidate can also be chosen. But even that would be a bust, the Republicans will do a terrible job with that.”
Order things
US President Joe Biden calls on representatives in the House of Representatives to “put things in order”. The lower house has not yet managed to elect a new president, while the vote is generally considered a formality.
After the president and the vice president, the president is the most important person in American politics. Biden finds it wrong that no one could be named on Tuesday. “This doesn’t look good,” the Democrat told reporters at the White House. “How do you think it looks to the rest of the world?”