The NPR Politics Podcast - Six Ballots — None The Speaker

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

Following three more votes on Wednesday, Republicans in the House remain divided on who should be the chamber's speaker. Support for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) remains high among Republicans, but he has not obtained the support of an overall majority of representatives.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh, and senior political editor & correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Katherine Swartz. Thanks to Lexie Schapitl.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, this is Kristen in snowy Stoughton, Wisconsin, and I am getting ready for the first round of shoveling for the day. This podcast was recorded at 5.43 p.m. on Wednesday, January 4th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but I will probably need to go out and shovel again. Stay warm. Here's the show. At first I thought she said shuffling, and we know a lot about shuffling right now. Stay warm. Here's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And the House of Representatives remains at an impasse. No member elect having received a majority of the whole number of votes cast,

a speaker has not been elected. Two days, six ballots, and still there's no Speaker of the House. California's Kevin McCarthy continues to be put forward as the majority party's nominee. Here's Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin. They gave us Republicans an opportunity to inject some basic common sense into the federal government to pull the emergency brake on a lot of the crazy we've seen in the last few years. They're asking us to do a job, and nobody has laid out a plan, a proactive policy agenda for the direction we want to take this country in more detail than Kevin McCarthy. And yet the votes have not budged.

About 20 Republicans continue to oppose McCarthy, today casting ballots in the fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds for Florida's Byron Donalds, who was first nominated by Texas Congressman Chip Roy. Byron is a dear friend, a solid conservative. The Democrats, newly in the minority and now playing the role of loyal opposition, have shown no interest in tossing McCarthy a lifeline with any of their votes. Democratic caucus chair Pete Aguilar of California continued to nominate minority leader Hakeem Jeffries throughout the day with the support of all 212 Democrats. Madam Clerk, make no mistake,

there is no frustration on our side. We are focused on serving the American people. Earlier today, President Biden weighed in, saying in part that this logjam was, in his words, not a good thing. And the former president, Donald Trump, took to his social media platform this morning to continue to endorse McCarthy, saying in part that he would, quote, do a good job, maybe even a great job. And yet the House adjourned for a second time with no speaker in place. Deirdre, you were on the Hill yesterday. You're on the Hill right now. Is patience wearing thin for Kevin McCarthy? Well, not for Kevin McCarthy. He keeps insisting that he is eventually going to get there. I mean, I asked him on his way into the floor today, and he said, I didn't say today. Eventually, we're going to come together. As for other House

Republicans, I think Kat Kamek said it best, the Florida Republican who nominated McCarthy, I think, on the sixth ballot, and she said, hey, it's Groundhog Day again. So I think that we're just in this weird standoff where McCarthy keeps saying that he's making progress, but he's not. If anything, the needle's moved in the other direction. Correct. I mean, there were 20 Republicans yesterday, 20 Republicans today. There was a 21st Republican, Victoria Spartz from Indiana, who had been backing McCarthy but voted present today, as she stood with the defectors on the floor and they applauded her. So clearly she's talking to them. There were a lot of super intense huddles with McCarthy allies, McCarthy critics on the House floor. And as I was watching them, I kept thinking maybe someone's gonna flip. But then

they would announce they were voting for Donald's the fourth time, the fifth time, the sixth time. Without any sign of a breakthrough, at least seemingly in sight, it also seems like the weird factor is going up. You know, you have former Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan, he just left Congress saying, oh, hey, I would be speaker if they want me to. Another former Michigan congressman, Justin Amash, flew to Washington, D.C. and was in the Capitol today, basically telling reporters he's just hanging out in case people want him to be speaker of the House. I think I spotted him on the floor. I wonder, does 538 in the New York Times have a needle for weird meter? It's getting, it is definitely getting weirder. But I also think members seem to be

getting angrier just tonight. A group of Republicans who are military veterans had a press conference in the Capitol and their anger at the 20 seems to also only be intensifying. Deirdre, I don't it's not just about the anger towards Kevin McCarthy. I feel like the internal Republican anger factor has also intensified. It has, and they keep using, you know, lines like hostage taking and, you know, we're not taking orders from them and they're trying to hold us hostage and they're only hurting the party. They're embarrassing the party. You know, Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, said he's listening to the news and it's making him feel sick. You know, in terms of this consequences that this group of national security Republicans were talking about, you know, one argued that they can't get classified information or briefings because the committees haven't formed.

Right. There's no House Intelligence Committee. There's no House Intelligence Committee chairman. If there's like any kind of national security event, they tend to brief the gang of eight, like the top four, you know, House and Senate leaders and committee chairs of the intelligence committees being just a red trickle because with this kind of majority, four seats, we all knew. We saw what happened with John Boehner and sort of the frustration he'd felt with this hard right conservative caucus. And he just didn't want to deal with them anymore because he couldn't even pass basic legislation. And we knew with a four-seat majority how difficult passing legislation would be. It's amazing that they can't even pick a leader and can't even agree on that. But I think they know that they could flex their muscles on this and that they could exercise a lot of demands and potentially a scalp here with Kevin McCarthy. Well, yesterday they put up a couple alternatives.

First they put up Andy couple alternatives. First, they put up Andy Biggs of Arizona. Then they moved on to Jim Jordan of Ohio. Jim Jordan said very clearly he does not want to be speaker. He has endorsed McCarthy. Today, they shifted to Byron Donalds. I think he's a lawmaker that a lot of our listeners probably don't know a lot about. He's a junior lawmaker. I mean, do you have a sense of what their strategy is here? I think Donald's also told reporters he knows he won't be speaker either. He did. I mean, I think he said he wasn't running for speaker, but he was trying to play some kind of constructive role to get to a consensus. I mean, I think as we've noted on this podcast, Democrats are nominating New York Congressman Hakeem Jeffries to be the new Democratic leader, he becomes the first Black leader of either party in Congress. And Byron Donalds, who,

as you said, Sue, I think this is just his second term in Congress, is Black. And Chip Roy, who nominated him, invoked Martin Luther King when he nominated him on the floor today. Yeah, I mean, Donald is a congressman from Florida. He was born in Brooklyn, by the way, so is Hakeem Jeffries. He's 44 years old. He represents Southwest Florida. Now he's described himself as a Trump-supporting, liberty-loving, pro-life, Second Amendment black man. That is his quote about how he describes himself. He seems somewhat flattered about this sort of new, you know, attention that he's getting. He said, well, they nominated me, right, when he was asked if he is actually running for speaker,

as Deirdre alluded to, that this wasn't really necessarily a serious bid on his part. And I think it surprised him somewhat, but he's happy to have the attention. And he really rode the Tea Party to the legislature in Florida. He gained their support. He has been one of the most conservative members since then, even voted against some gun legislation after the Parkland school massacre there're one of the only members to do that. So really has been able to rise to fame through, you know, using this conservative angle, you know, and being and now kind of getting all this newfound attention, which was unexpected for him. But Donald's ran for a leadership position in November and lost. He ran to be, I think it's worth maybe taking a step back for a minute at the battle to be speaker, because it's not unusual that people in the past have faced

internal party resistance to get the gavel. Nancy Pelosi faced internal resistance. John Boehner faced internal resistance. Paul Ryan faced internal resistance. But they were able to get there before they got to this point, right? There's a reason why they haven't fought it out on the floor. What is it about the dynamic of this makeup of the Republican Party that is preventing Kevin McCarthy or frankly, anyone else from doing that? Well, the other thing that's striking too too when you mentioned Pelosi is McCarthy has the same razor thin four seat majority that Pelosi had in the last session of Congress that just ended. And a bunch of people

who didn't want her to be speaker anymore. Right, and had publicly come out against her right before that election. But in the wake of that, she knew she had a thin majority. She negotiated behind the scenes, offered up to term limit herself and secured the votes and won on the floor. is making these demands that are a little bit unclear at some point seem pretty personal, but also seem pretty hard for McCarthy to actually agree to. I mean, I talked to one of them, South Carolina Republican Ralph Norman, and he essentially said he doesn't believe Kevin

McCarthy is really a fiscal conservative. He pointed to his record over the last 14 years on spending bills. And he said, look, I want to do some major cuts. And I want Kevin McCarthy to agree to all these cuts and essentially agree to shut down the government if he can't get them through. And he also said, I want Kevin McCarthy to agree to not raise the debt ceiling if we can't get these kinds of cuts through. And I said, Congressman, you have a Democratic Senate, a Democratic president, like you can't pass this stuff. And he was like, we're in this fiscal crisis, we need to make a stand, we need to address our country's spending problem. Basically, he wants the fight. Yeah. I mean, I always think that there is, I try to explain this to people when they ask about the differences in the parties because the left – there's a far left in the Democratic Party. There's a far right in the Republican Party. But the far right sort of animating impulse is almost anti-government, right? We said it's anti-establishment.

It's anti-government. They want to break it down. And the far left's animating impulse is still pro-government. They still want to build government up, make it down. And the far left's animating impulse is still pro-government. They still want to build government up, make it bigger. So it's almost easier to get the left in the fold because they fundamentally believe in government. It's a lot harder to get the far right in the fold because they just fundamentally don't want to see government continue in its current form. They really see government as the enemy. You Ronald Reagan said, it gets in the way. It hurts businesses.

And part of what they're here to do is to somewhat strangle government, to reduce how much it does, how much it spends, what its role is in society, abroad, and all of that. And it makes it really difficult if you're looking to negotiate with folks who, you know, really are just sort of sitting there in an intransigent way. You know, and it's not like they don't want anything. They certainly want a type of America that they foresee and that they would want to instill, but they don't have the power to do it. They do have this power to be able to control at this point, who might the speaker be. And they have a Republican conference in the Senate that is not on the same page as them.

Certainly not when it comes to government shutdowns and defaulting on the national debt. Georgia, there was an interesting moment, I thought today, and I wonder if maybe I'm reading too much into it or if it's something we should follow. Ken Buck is a Republican from Colorado. He voted for McCarthy in all six rounds. He's been behind him. But he was one of the first lawmakers I heard today start to float the idea that if McCarthy can't start to close this gap, he might have to entertain stepping aside and letting someone else try. And he specifically named check Steve Scalise, the majority leader, who has been sort of part of this whisper conversation of whether he could be speaker, although to be clear, Scalise has made

no moves to that end. Do you get a sense that even the McCarthy wall might be starting to show some cracks? I mean, I think there is growing concern that this public spectacle is making the party look bad. Some of McCarthy's allies say people aren't really paying attention. They're going to work. They're going to the gas station. Life moves on. This is not a big deal. We should just have this debate and get through it. But I think there are some like Buck who are saying that quiet part out loud. We can't just do this forever. And Buck, in this interview on CNN said, look, we could get to this point where other senior members go to Kevin and say, it's just time to move forward. But I don't get the sense that Steve Scalise,

the number two House Republican from Louisiana, who was close to McCarthy and has been backing him, could get the votes to win the speaker's race either right now. And Buck seemed to have a sense of urgency about it. He said a couple times that it should be and has to be today where this movement is made, where either McCarthy can win over some of these folks or cut bait. And I think that it really is indicative when you think about today, looking at the split screen that we all saw happening with President Biden in Kentucky, with Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, talking about how they were able to get funding for a bridge through the bipartisan infrastructure bill, while at the same time, Republicans were

once again failing to even pick a leader in the House. All right, let's leave it there for today. We should note the House does plan to meet again tonight at 8pm Eastern Time for more deliberations and possibly more voting. We'll see what happens and we'll be back in the podcast to talk about it when we can. I'm Susan Davis, I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh, I cover Congress. And I'm Domenica Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.