At this point, we’ve just wrapped up the sixth vote for the Speaker of the House position and it didn’t seem like Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was getting any closer to getting the votes needed for the position. Indeed, some of them, like Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) said they were more firm than ever about not voting for him, after conversations in the conference.
As my colleague Duke wrote earlier, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has been leading the charge for someone other than McCarthy, to change how the Republicans have been doing things. Roy proposed Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) as an alternative. But he indicated it wasn’t so much about McCarthy as about changing the status quo of how things were done.
But Roy has just suggested to CNN’s Manu Raju that there might be a possibility for McCarthy. According to Raju, “in a welcome sign for Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Chip Roy told Raju that he had had “more productive” talks over the last two hours with McCarthy allies than he has had over the last few weeks. “He expects to be part of group talks tonight.”
Raju said Roy also said that he is not a “hard-no” on McCarthy, “While he said that the ‘clown show’ GOP conference meeting yesterday ‘hardened opposition’ to McCarthy, he added that they are ‘trying to repair that damage today, and progress has been made.'”
That sounds like he thinks they may be moving more toward the possibility of a deal in the offing. But the problem with this is how they guarantee that they will get the change that so much of the base wants if they go along and vote in McCarthy. Based on what Roy has said so far, one would think he’s going to hold the line on getting what the 20 members who are objecting (and much of the base) want. But we’ll have to see what breaks after the meeting.
Another objector, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) also indicated that he thought progress had been made, that things had changed and he was “encouraged by it.”
Bishop also indicated that he was not a hard no, stating, “I have never said no way because I don’t think in those terms.”
Raju said that there were going to be four people from each side — the pro-McCarthy and the anti-McCarthy contingents — getting together Wednesday night to see if they can come to a resolution and break the standoff.