Former president Donald Trump has renewed his endorsement of California Representative Kevin McCarthy to serve as Speaker of the House despite Mr McCarthys failure to garner support from a majority of the chamber in three consecutive votes on Tuesday.
In the hours immediately after Mr McCarthy became the first Speaker-designate from a majority party to fail to win on the first vote in a full century, Mr Trump expressed some caution about his prospects, telling NBC News: “We’ll see what happens”.
But on Wednesday morning, the twice-impeached ex-president took to his Truth Social platform to offer a full-throated defence of the man who helped him retain political relevance by visiting him at his Florida home after he’d left the White House in disgrace.
He alluded to “great conversations” among Republicans the night after the failed votes and said it was time for “all of our great Republican House members” to cast their votes for Mr McCarthy.
He added an all-capital letters exhortation to “close the deal” and “take the victory” so Republicans could watch the former Democratic Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, “fly back home to a very broken California.” Notably, Ms Pelosi is remaining in Congress to represent the San Francisco district that has elected her every two years since 1987.
Mr Trump further encouraged the House GOP not to “turn a great triumph into a giant [and] embarrassing defeat”.
“It’s time to celebrate, you deserve it,” he said, adding that Mr Mc Carthy “will do a good job and maybe even a great job”.
A short time later, the former president suggested that Republicans “ought to be fighting” the Senate minority leader, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. Mr McConnell is a frequent target of Mr Trump’s attacks as Mr Trump appears to resent Mr McConnell participating in shaping and passing bipartisan legislation instead of engaging in the performative theatrics of his House counterparts.
Elsewhere in his missives, Mr Trump added a racist barb about his former transport secretary, Elaine Chao, who is married to the Kentucky senator. Mr Trump referred to Ms Chao, who was born in Taiwan, as Mr McConnell’s “domineering, China loving BOSS, I mean wife, Coco Chow” and claimed both have done “incalculable” harm to the GOP.
In a separate post, he encouraged Republicans to “take the victory and run” by electing Mr McCarthy as Speaker for the 118th Congress.
It’s unclear whether the 20-member faction opposed to the Californian will heed Mr Trump’s call to lay down arms. Of those 20, 16 must switch votes back to Mr McCarthy, but many of them have vowed publicly never to do so.
Until the chamber elects a speaker, it cannot perform any of its’ functions because the speaker is responsible for swearing in all members and shepherding a package of rules for the Congress through the chamber.
