Chaos in the US Congress: the Republicans fail to elect the speaker. Too “Soft” Candidate
The Republican majority in the US Congress is deadlocked: the preferred candidate Kevin McCarthy, from California, fails to reach the necessary majority of 218 votes, despite his party enjoying a majority of 9 votes. The situation was repeated for three different ballots in which the Democratic candidate always obtained 212 votes, while McCarthy even lost one vote from the first to the third vote, going from 203 to 202. Other votes fell to the Republican Jim Jordan, who however officially endorses McCarthy.
In reality, NONE of the Republican leaders opposes the Californian McCarthy, but, despite this, he lacks about twenty votes. Which? Those of a minority of hard-core Trumpians who, however, cannot tolerate it. This is not a question of the program: Jim Jordan made it clear that, in order to get his vote, the Speaker of the House (the "Speaker") would have to commit himself to three programmatic points:
- defend the borders from the flow of migrants;
- strengthen the armed forces;
- stop Biden's spending policies.
McCarthy did it but it's not enough. There is a personal problem with the candidate who has two enormous defects compared to the more radicals: he is Californian, like outgoing Nancy Pelosi, and he is a career politician who has made many compromises in the past. For these reasons, he is not credible towards the more radical Republicans, who do not see his figure as a sufficient break with the "Washington Swamp".
In this condition McCarthy will hardly be able to win, also because the discussion is precisely on his personal figure. A bitter domestic opponent has even asked how long he will be allowed to sit in the Speaker's office, which he has temporarily occupied, despite not being elected:
Gaetz sent a letter to the Architect of the Capitol questioning why McCarthy is allowed to occupy the Speaker's office. pic.twitter.com/gOlXOtlHQj
— Juliegrace Brufke (@juliegraceb) January 4, 2023
At this point the party either continues with McCarthy, at the cost of crumbling the party itself, or it will be necessary to find another mediator who, perhaps, is not a Californian…
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The article Chaos in the US Congress: the Republicans fail to elect the speaker. Too "Soft" candidate comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/caos-nel-congresso-usa-i-repubblicani-non-riescono-ad-eleggere-lo-speaker-candidato-troppo-morbido/ on Wed, 04 Jan 2023 08:00:20 +0000.