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Trump's support not enough to secure Kevin McCarthy as new speaker

McCarthy's bid is met with opposition from the anti-establishment Freedom Caucus, which has 52 House members.

Kevin McCarthy / Cordon Press.

Kevin McCarthy / Cordon Press.

Published by
José Carlos Rodríguez

It is not a done deal that Kevin McCarthy is going to be the new speaker of the House. The Republican majority is razor-thin (222-213), and during this transitional phase for the GOP, being the establishment candidate does not assure that he will assume the position. He has Donald Trump's endorsement, but it still might not be enough.

He is already facing competition. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has announced his candidacy.

We have a new paradigm here. And I think the country wants a different direction from the House of Representatives, and it’s a new world. And yes, I’m going to be nominated tomorrow for the position of speaker of the House. We’ll see if we can get the job done. It’s going to be tough. Kevin [McCarthy] has raised a lot of money and done a lot of things, but this is not just about Kevin. I think it’s about institutional direction and trajectory, and that’s where we’re going to see if we have enough people who agree that we need to change the trajectory of this place and open it up.

Freedom Caucus

Biggs is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a clique of Republican representatives who take a firm stance on spending reduction, tax cuts, and economic deregulation. Ideologically, they are the heirs of Ronald Reagan, a president whose legacy has been overshadowed by the figure of Donald Trump. Trump was indeed known for his deregulation policies, but he also initiated a policy of increased spending that Joe Biden has continued.

The Freedom Caucus was created in 2016, with 36 representatives. In 2018 they gained one member, and in 2020 they reached 52. In the midterm elections, all 52 representatives were re-elected. The collective is powerful enough to prevent McCarthy's leadership, but not powerful enough to take the position for themselves. This leverage, however, does allow them to set some procedural and strategic blocks.

McCarthy rejected in the first vote

McCarthy seems to have trouble counting, because has downplayed the strength of the Freedom Caucus. "I do not think at the end of the day that five Republicans are going to hold up our opportunity to secure the border, or that five Republicans are going to sit back and make us not be energy independent, or let this runaway spending continue," he said. In the first vote, 36 members of the House of Representatives opposed McCarthy's plans.

Donald Trump's support

As reported in The New York Times, "Former President Donald J. Trump has been working the phones, personally pitching right-wing lawmakers on voting to make Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader he has called ‘My Kevin,’ the speaker of the House."

Marjorie Taylor Greene is a key player in McCarthy's bid to be speaker. Taylor Greene is part of the far-right wing of the Republican Party. Recently, she has gotten herself into a bit of hot water by saying that if she had organized the assault on the Capitol, "it would have been armed." She has since said that these comments were made in jest, but her history of making controversial statements has not earned her retraction much credence.

The five families

Taylor Greene, the congresswoman for Georgia's 14th district, has become McCarthy's, right-hand woman. The aspiring speaker needs her as a bridge of communication with the most conservative sector of the Republican Party in the House.

Taylor Greene stated:

What we’ve been doing, and it’s really interesting, people are arguing, people are clashing, people are also starting to agree. And there’s a meeting happening every week, and we meet in Kevin McCarthy‘s office. And it’s called the five families. And the five families, you know my reference, the five families are parts of our conference, all the different parts. And we are coming together and having discussions on how we are going to govern in the majority.

These words give an idea of the extent of the divide within the Republican representatives over the strategy they will take to govern with such a slim majority. The reference to the "five families," which Greene took from Steve Bannon, does not mean that there are five distinct groups. Nor does it mean that they end up killing each other, as in The Godfather saga. There still remains no assurance that Kevin McCarthy will be the new speaker.

Low expectations for the new Congress

The truth is that Americans have low expectations for the new Congress' ability to make improvements. Fewer than one in five Americans (18%) believe the new slim Republican majority will change things for the better, while 21% believe it will change things for the worse. Fifty-one percent believe it will not make a significant difference at all, according to a Monmouth University survey.

Patrick Murray, director of the Independent Polling Institute at Monmouth University, interprets this data:

Some pundits look at these election results and claim that Americans want divided control. I think these frequent leadership changes are more a matter of chronic dissatisfaction with Washington. Expectations for Washington getting its act together are very low when you ask Americans directly. They’ve seen this show before.
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