Former White House adviser Karl Rove predicted that the inability of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to secure the speakership is likely just the beginning of the chaos.
McCarthy’s worst fears came true Tuesday when 19 Republicans refused to back his speaker bid, and he failed to secure the simple majority of the House of Representatives needed to become speaker of the House.
For the first time in a century, the vote on a House speaker headed to a second, then third, vote as backers of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) refused to budge. Rove sees the affair as a major blunder for Republicans and likely only the beginning of their problems in the House.
“This is an utter, unmitigated disaster. Chaos tends to bring about chaos until it no longer brings about chaos. We’re a long way from the point at which chaos stops bringing around more chaos,” Rove said in an appearance on Fox News.
HOUSE SPEAKER VOTE BECOMES SLOGFEST AS FIGHT HEADS TO THIRD BALLOT
He broke down the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that culminated in McCarthy’s embarrassment, the doing of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
“My understanding is is that yesterday, late in the day, late in the afternoon or into the evening, McCarthy made two concessions on the motion to vacate, where he had offered to allow such motions to take place if five members supported it. The Freedom Caucus people wanted one. He conceded,” Rove said. “They also wanted a special committee, church-style committee, to investigate the weaponization of the Department of Justice and the FBI. And he agreed to let that happen.”
“But what’s interesting is after that, they moved the goalpost. Suddenly, they wanted to have Scott Perry made chairman of the committee and for Perry to be able to designate who the committee members were. No speaker has that authority. That has to be done by the committee on committees,” he continued.
He went on to describe the other demands of the House Freedom Caucus.
“So, these are extraordinary demands by the Freedom Caucus and both for personal power. Scott Perry to be the chairman of this high-profile committee, the Freedom Caucus members to be able to designate what committees they served on, and so forth. It’s a pretty extraordinary list. And what was interesting was after McCarthy had conceded on their two big issues, they came up with a whole bunch of other demands.”
Rove warned that other Republican factions may be emboldened by the concessions given to the House Freedom Caucus, setting up even more chaos in the speakership battle. He believes that the only way forward is for McCarthy to throw in the towel since his speakership seems to be all but an impossibility.
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However, in line with Rove’s theory of more chaos breaking out, the deadlock with McCarthy could result in centrist factions throwing their weight behind a centrist candidate, possibly even someone who isn’t a member of Congress, as is allowed by law.
