Republicans Nominate Trump Favorite Kevin McCarthy as Next House Speaker

Kevin McCarthy, a major ally of former President Donald Trump, was nominated to be the next speaker of the House on Tuesday.

House Republicans voted 188–31 for the California representative, who beat farther-right Arizona Representative Andy Biggs for the nomination.

The Republican Party is one seat away from taking control of the House of Representatives. If they do, then the full chamber will vote on whether McCarthy should be speaker on January 3, once the new Congress is sworn in. McCarthy will need a total of 218 votes to win the spot.

But it’s not clear if he’ll have all those votes. His own party is not unified behind him, despite Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene urging her colleagues to back him. Florida Representative Matt Gaetz told reporters McCarthy “does not have 218 votes to become speaker. I don’t think he has 200.”

Gaetz had previously said he would back Representative Jim Jordan for speakership, not McCarthy. Dozens of conservative leaders on Monday penned a letter calling for a delay in the House leadership vote until next month.

While 31 votes against McCarthy’s nomination isn’t a small number, it also isn’t totally out of the norm. In November 2018, 32 Democrats voted against nominating Nancy Pelosi as House speaker.

McCarthy, the House minority leader, has made no secret of his ambitions to move up in the chamber—and he’s starting to get a little desperate. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the minority leader’s team had made several calls to Texas Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar asking him to switch parties, giving McCarthy an extra vote.

Cuellar turned them down, the Journal said, citing anonymous sources familiar with the calls.

Representative Matt Gaetz was slated to join Donald Trump for the former president’s third presidential announcement in Mar-a-Lago Tuesday night. But the Florida representative might be trying to wiggle out of it. Apparently, inclement weather is inhibiting his flight.

However, as New York Times reporter Jane Coaston pointed out, flights from Washington D.C. to Florida are all running just fine—regardless of which airport one may be flying from.

Gaetz, a proudly self-declared MAGA Republican, was among those challenging Kevin McCarthy’s House leadership. Trump, for his part, supported McCarthy’s nomination as House speaker.

But there has otherwise been no clear indicator of Gaetz also defecting from Trump. Last week, the representative spoke out amid calls from Republicans to ditch Trump following a disappointing midterm election, insisting that “only Trump can be trusted to enact the ‘America First’ agenda he ran on in 2016. We won’t accept any imitation.”

However, much has changed since even last week. As more elections have been declared, Trump’s mark has continued to decay—over 30 candidates he endorsed have lost, including far-right stars like Kari Lake and Blake Masters.

Meanwhile, even more Republicans have spoken out against Trumpism—from New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and outgoing Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis and Trump’s former vice president (and potential competitor) Mike Pence.

Given the building pressure, it would not be out of the question for Gaetz to have second thoughts—or at least to cover his bases by ensuring he wasn’t in the photos for Trump’s announcement.

While Tuesday’s weather still welcomes Gaetz to safely fly down for Trump’s announcement, he may be navigating the thorny broader political climate instead by choosing not to.

A judge in Georgia on Tuesday overturned the state’s ban on abortions after six weeks, a major win for women and gender minorities.

Georgia had passed a law in 2019 banning abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is as early as six weeks—before many people even know they are pregnant—but the legislation only took effect after the Supreme Court rolled back the nationwide right to the procedure in June.

A group of doctors and advocacy groups sued Georgia in July, seeking to strike down the law. Judge Robert McBurney sided with them Tuesday, ruling that the six-week ban “did not become the law of Georgia when it was enacted and it is not the law of Georgia now.”

Not only are two sections of the law “plainly unconstitutional,” but “there is no legal basis” for the statewide ban at all, he said in his ruling.

A spokesperson for the Georgia attorney general told the AP that they plan to appeal the decision.

The ruling is a huge win for people in Georgia, where Republican Brian Kemp was just reelected governor. Kemp had refused to say during a debate against Stacey Abrams whether he would sign more abortion restrictions into law if reelected.

Abrams had slammed his nonanswer, warning that “women are in danger” under this governor.

Her accusation was backed up by health professionals, who warned in a study that if abortion is banned in Georgia, maternal mortality will increase 29 percent. If the procedure is banned nationwide, then maternal mortality will rise 24 percent overall.

Maternal mortality among Black people nationwide will skyrocket 39 percent.

The United States already has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, and Georgia has the second-highest rate in the country, of 48.4 deaths out of 100,000 births, according to the World Population Review.

“I guess today, we are all ‘election deniers,’” tweeted right-wing commentator Steven Crowder Tuesday morning. Crowder is among those stirring conspiracy about Kari Lake’s loss to Katie Hobbs in Arizona’s gubernatorial race. “DO NOT CONCEDE,” Crowder insisted.

Before the election, Crowder suggested a peaceful transfer of power was overrated. And after the election, Crowder switched to peddling conspiracy theories to over 80,000 Rumble viewers on his program Louder With Crowder.

One of these theories involved polling locations in Maricopa County, where ballot printers were not producing ink dark enough to be read by tabulators. But in reality, the county’s election officials—largely Republicans—had numerous solutions in place so all votes could be soundly counted.

Crowder and his panel also couldn’t believe that longtime Arizona Republican and incumbent Treasurer Kimberly Yee won more votes than inflammatory John McCain–slamming Kari Lake. The panel almost approached some self-awareness on that notion.

“We’re spending a lot of our time right now thinking, ‘Did we get cheated, did we really lose?’” panelist Gerald Morgan Jr. said. “I’m spending most of my time on this instead of going, ‘OK, well hey, we lost, why did we lose? Was it because Kari Lake took a giant steaming dump on John McCain and maybe she played better nationally than she played in Arizona?’ OK, maybe. I highly doubt it.”

Crowder and company have not been alone in sowing distrust in Kari Lake’s lost election. Former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “they just took the election away from Kari Lake.”

Right-wing commentator Todd Starnes echoed Crowder’s call:

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell alleged “computer manipulation:”

The list goes on. These voices all fall in line behind Lake herself, who has spent a good majority of her campaign sowing conspiracy and distrust in elections (as if not only trying to curry favor with Trump but to prepare for her own loss the whole time).

After losing, Lake took to Twitter, showing she had no intention of conceding for the time being:

It’s not shocking that Lake, whose campaign has largely been about denying truth, has yet to concede. But nearly every other big-ticket election denialist who has run and lost thus far has conceded.

Online commentators may try to keep Lake’s false hope alive, but it won’t be enough. Congressional Republicans now are largely occupied with picking new leadership and navigating a dangerously slim House majority. They, just like most of the country and like Arizona voters, are moving on from Lake—whether right-wing commentators believe it or not.

Arizona Representative Andy Biggs intends to challenge Kevin McCarthy for speaker of the house.

The far-right lawmaker announced his plan Monday night on Newsmax, as Republicans creep ever closer to controlling the House of Representatives.

Biggs was elected to Congress in 2016, when he campaigned on the goal of advancing then-President Donald Trump’s political agenda. He is a former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative politicians on the Hill.

Biggs has been subpoenaed by the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, but he has refused to cooperate. He has also made cruel jokes about the brutal attack on current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

“We’re going to show Nancy Pelosi the door very shortly,” he said during an election night event. “Don’t let it hit you on the backside, Nancy. She’s losing the gavel but finding the hammer.”

McCarthy, the House minority leader, has made no secret of his ambitions to move up in the chamber. Despite the distinct lack of the promised “red wave” on election night, McCarthy was already campaigning to be speaker of the House.

But his party is clearly not unified behind him. Dozens of conservative leaders on Monday penned a letter calling for a delay in the House leadership vote until next month.

And although far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has urged her colleagues to back McCarthy, Biggs is not the only challenger he will face. Representative Steve Scalise is also running to be majority leader. Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz has said he backs Jim Jordan for House speaker, and Virginia Representative Bob Good also spoke out against McCarthy.

McCarthy seems to be getting desperate. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the minority leader’s team had made several calls to Texas Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar asking him to switch parties, giving McCarthy an extra vote.

Cuellar turned them down, the Journal said, citing anonymous sources familiar with the calls.