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I take issue with the phrasing, he didn’t assemble 216 votes, he managed 8 and Dems provided the rest.
I'm honestly confused about the democratic strategy here. We need a speaker in 42 days to prevent a government shutdown. Wouldn't it have been better to wring concessions out of this dude to shut down the MAGA idiots?
Democrats had wrestled in recent days with whether to help Mr. McCarthy survive, or at least to stay out of the effort to oust him. But in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, instructed fellow Democrats not to do so, citing Republicans’ “unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism.” Democrats did not participate in the floor debate.
Considering he already backed out on a deal to keep the government open, I doubt they'd trust him enough to keep his word.
That was actually their argument against keeping him in the seat. He's completely untrustworthy.
already backed out on a deal
Ah, I didn't know that.
Yep, that's why the Dems rightly didn't lift a finger for McCarthy - he welshes on his promises.
And then blamed them for the possible shut down
There's a backup Speaker, Patrick McHenry, who will probably keep the seat warm until the next election.
Democrats have a lot of options here, and they all have some upside. Keep McCarthy on, and they might still be able to work out deals with him (devil-you-know strategy). Let him go, and there's a few other options. Work with a handful of the slightly more sensible Republicans to put someone they can all agree with up there. Or let the GOP fight amongst themselves and take all the blame in the lead up to the next election.
They all have merit. One way it could somewhat backfire is if the GOP tries that insane plan to put in Trump as Speaker. The next steps are to impeach and remove both the President and Vice President, thus putting Trump back into the White House, since the Speaker is next in line. This plan has too many failure modes to actually work, but they might try step one, anyway.
One way it could somewhat backfire is if the GOP tries that insane plan to put in Trump as Speaker. The next steps are to impeach and remove both the President and Vice President, thus putting Trump back into the White House, since the Speaker is next in line.
Jeez that'd be fuckin bananas.
I never even thought that far into their crazy scheme.
Naturally this would fail hard once it got to the Senate vote, but still...
That's OK, they didn't think it through, either. It's something that's been actively circulated at conservative events. The attendees with more than two braincells know it's never going to work, but there's plenty of attendees with only one.
it's such a wild idea. it might just work..
Having both the President and Vice President to have "Speaker Trump" would be a crazier plot than the plot of Swing Vote.
Yeah, no rules that I’m aware of that dictate when the next election for speaker must be held. It would be funny if they just don’t do it, and speaker Pro Tempore just assumes all duties.
I don't think this works because I believe according to House rules, until there's a Speaker (not a pro temp), the only issue the House can take up is the confirmation of a new Speaker.
See Exhibit A: When the House was paralyzed in January when they spent 17 ballots, give or take, to confirm McCarthy.
In that case there was no speaker, now there’s a speaker pro tempore. Current(?) House rules, ch 34 section 2: The Member acting as Speaker pro tempore under this provision may exercise such authorities of the Office of Speaker as may be necessary and appropriate pending the election of a Speaker or Speaker pro tempore.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPRACTICE-108/html/GPO-HPRACTICE-108-35.htm
Jeffries says he’s reneged and can’t be trusted to keep his word. I guess the play is to see who most Republicans will vote for that will also make some concessions, but they would have the same problem that they did with McCarthy; there’s no promise that any Speaker could make that couldn’t be reneged on. So, they need a Republican they can trust, which doesn’t leave many options.
they need a Republican they can trust
This is an oxymoron
Wouldn’t it have been better to wring concessions out of this dude to shut down the MAGA idiots?
That was discussed in this thread. tl;dr: he did a public interview where he was still calling Democrats out for some kind of stupid shit. That basically killed any chance of a deal.
Well Kevin McCarthy is a terrible person; his cozying up to Trump and rhetoric about the election makes him responsible along with Trump for January 6th, he's proven himself a lecherous, power-hungry politician whose life's ambition was to become Speaker (supposedly), and he was totally ineffective at reining in Gaetz and the rest, and he was actively trying to stall out talks to cause a government shutdown. For all those reasons, House Democrats would have no incentive to cross the aisle for him here. McCarthy should be thrown out of Congress and prosecuted for Jan 6th; having his life's goal immediately ripped away from him will have to do for now.
The Dems biggest enemy have always been themselves. If they will find a way to fuck themselves, you better believe they'll do it.