The latest news from Capitol Hill is that Republicans have just chosen yet another nominee for Speaker of the House after several failed attempts I want to bring in Manu Raju over on Capitol Hill Banu. The Fourth time’s the charm of what’s going on right now on the hill.
Actually real warning sign yet again for Republicans as they name their fourth nominee.
In just three weeks, Mike Johnson was named the nominee Republican from Louisiana won the majority vote in his conference with 128 votes just moments ago, but there’s a real warning for him and concerns about his ability to get the tuner and 17 votes, he will need to be elected Speaker of the House.
![Mike Johnson](https://isnewstime.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Untitled-75-1024x583.jpg)
That’s because there are 44 votes who voted for other candidates. 44 Republicans voted for other candidates. 43 of those voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, causing enormous tension in the room next to me. Some members believe that McCarthy is intentionally undercutting Mike Johnson’s ascent to the speakership and others, including Mark Greene, a candidate in this race.
Once he learned that some of those candidates were voting for Kevin McCarthy
said that people were playing games and he decided instead to endorse Mike Johnson, all raising more concerns about whether the Republicans after three weeks of the gridlock of infighting have dealing with a leadership crisis that has left the house completely paralyzed, can actually get out of the crisis that they themselves cause here because of the fact that even though they have another nominee, who has a majority of the support within the republican conference, this person at the moment,
Mike Johnson does not have the tuner and 17 votes, he needs to be elected speaker, raising even more questions, Abby, about how they will resolve this, who could come next, what the next plan might be, if nothing changes in the next 24 hours or so, as all these huge issues, wait for that for the House to act, whether it’s dealing with Ukraine aid, Israel aid or taking steps to avoid a government shutdown. None of that can happen.
![mike johnson](https://isnewstime.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Untitled-77-1024x585.jpg)
Given this infighting that is happening in the Republican Party,
the inability to get behind a candidate in the aftermath of the ouster of the speakership just three weeks ago, something that they have yet to resolve as they remain battling behind the scenes about how they should resolve this, Abby, it is really incredible that this is still going on. And as you point out, the chaos isn’t over. Their nominees still don’t have the votes to become speaker. As of right now, Manu
was also on the house on January 6, committee to react Adam to everything And I want to just add one more factor here to all of the last few candidates who were just up tonight. And this is where things stand right now.
This was a dynamic that existed within the GOP conference.
The difference is that we’ll call them the moderates. For the sake of argument, the people that are kind of like, you know, let’s work together as a team. They’re actually standing up and fighting back for the first time ever. If you think back 12 years to anything, the Republican majority since 2010, tried to do, there was always a group of people that was taking it down.
You look at the Obamacare repeal and replace bill
which I actually think the one we had created was good until the far right came in and said, No, we want to make sure there’s no protection for pre-existing conditions. They’re always coming in and throwing bombs. And now you’re actually seeing the regular folks actually fighting back against that. And right now, look, Mike Johnson, I mean, I’ll tell you, the guy started out fairly normally and then went really deep into Trump when he realized that’s what it took to get reelected.
So he may have the same issues Jim Jordan does as long as the so-called moderates continue to try to fight back. I think we’re gonna see a point eventually, if I had to predict where this was gonna go, it’s either gonna go into people need to just elect Patrick McHenry, who, frankly, everybody likes he’s just reluctant to do it and doesn’t want to be Speaker. I don’t blame him, or ultimately, a deal has got to be cut with the Democrats. But we’ll see. I think Mike Johnson will be a good test for everybody to see if kind of a regular name not really a controversial name can win this and if he can’t, then I think they’re we’re gonna have to start thinking outside the box.
If Mike Johnson, the GOP conference Vice Chair, is also the Deputy Whip for the Republican conference, but also not someone who got more votes than the last person who was the Speaker designee.