The new Congress opens with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy grasping for his political survival.
But first, House Republicans must elect a speaker, second in succession to the presidency.
A new generation of Trump-aligned Republicans are leading the opposition to McCarthy, inspired by the former president's Make America Great Again slogan. They don't think McCarthy is conservative enough or tough enough to battle Democrats. It's reminiscent of the last time Republicans took back the House majority, after the 2010 midterms, when the tea-party class ushered in a new era of hardball politics, eventually sending Speaker John Boehner to an early retirement.
“Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the 218 votes to be speaker,” Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the chairman of the Freedom Caucus and a leader in Trump's efforts to challenge the 2020 election, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Unless something dramatically changes, that’s where we’re going to be.”
A viable challenger to McCarthy had yet to emerge. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., a former leader of the Freedom Caucus, was running against McCarthy as a conservative option, but was not expected to pull a majority. McCarthy defeated him in the November nominating contest,The second-ranking House Republican, Rep.
Without a speaker, the House cannot fully form — naming its committee chairmen, engaging in floor proceedings and launching the investigations of the Biden administration that are expected to be core to the Republicans' agenda.
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