Former Republican: McConnell Wants to Work with A ‘Unified Candidate,’ Not Kevin McCarthy
Former Republican: McConnell Wants to Work with A ‘Unified Candidate,’ Not Kevin McCarthy
House Republican leader struggling with bid for speaker
As the 118th Congress convenes Tuesday, and all eyes will be on the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and whether House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy will get over the finish line as the next speaker.
However, the California Republican is hardly Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's choice for the job, according to a former Republican congressman.
McCarthy long dreamt of taking the top job in the House, but Republicans only took the new majority in one of slimmest majorities in modern history in November's midterm elections.
He can lose just a handful of Republican defectors in the vote for speaker and he's reportedly coming into Tuesday's vote still short.
Despite those machinations, McCarthy is not the candidate of choice for the Republican leader on the other side of the Capitol, said one-time Florida Republican congressman David Jolly.
“These are two very different chambers and what you’re seeing from Mitch McConnell is he’s distancing himself from the House, to your point,” Jolly, who has left the party and become its critic, said in an on-camera appearance on MSNBC. “He knows the House is going to be a circus and the Senate, most of them will want to be the adults in the room.
“I would suggest it comes down to your previous question, though. Who is the next speaker, and could there be a unity ticket or a unity speaker? If it’s not McCarthy, maybe it’s [Republican Rep Steve] Scalise, maybe it’s Richard Hudson of North Carolina,” Jolly added. “If you get to 12, 15, 20 ballots and this is into next week, now you’re looking at a candidate like Tom Cole of Oklahoma, Fred Upton who has left the House now, but could come back. Somebody who has to be universally respected by Republicans.”
The speaker of the House need not be a current member of the chamber.
“It’s not [former Republican Reps Adam] Kinzinger or [Liz] Cheney. Somebody universally respected by Republicans who can get say 150 of the 222 Republicans, and at that point, the ‘break-glass’ scenario is Democrats say, ‘This is a pretty strong hand we can play if we lend 70 votes to this unified candidate.’ That’s who Mitch McConnell wants to work with, not Kevin McCarthy.”
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