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After four days of grueling ballots, McCarthy flipped more than a dozen conservative holdouts to become supporters, including the chairman of the chamber\u2019s Freedom Caucus.<\/p>\n
He fell one vote short on the 14th ballot, and the chamber became raucous, unruly.<\/p>\n
McCarthy strode to the back of the chamber to confront Republican Matt Gaetz, sitting with Lauren Boebert and other holdouts. Fingers were pointed, words exchanged and violence apparently just averted.<\/p>\n
At one point, Republican Mike Rogers of Alabama started to charge toward Gaetz before another Republican, Richard Hudson, physically pulled him back.<\/p>\n
\u201cStay civil!\u201d someone shouted.<\/p>\n
Order restored, the Republicans fell in line to give McCarthy the post he had fought so hard to gain.<\/p>\n
The few Republican holdouts began voting present, dropping the tally he needed. It was the end of the bitter standoff that had shown the strengths and fragility American democracy.<\/p>\n
The tally was 216-212 with Democrats voting for leader Hakeem Jeffries, and six Republican holdouts to McCarthy simply voting present.<\/p>\n
The day\u2019s stunning turn of events came after McCarthy agreed to many of the detractors\u2019 demands — including the reinstatement of a longstanding House rule that would allow any single member to call a vote to oust him from office.<\/p>\n
Even as McCarthy secured the votes he needs, he will emerge as a weakened speaker, having given away some powers and constantly under the threat of being booted by his detractors.<\/p>\n
\n
But he could also be emboldened as a survivor of one of the more brutal fights for the gavel in U.S. history. Not since the Civil War era has a speaker\u2019s vote dragged through so many rounds of voting.<\/p>\n
The showdown that has stymied the new Congress came against the backdrop of the second anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which shook the country when a mob of then-President Donald Trump\u2019s supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the Republican\u2019s 2020 election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
At a Capitol event on Friday, some lawmakers, all but one of them Democrats, observed a moment of silence and praised officers who helped protect Congress on that day. And at the White House, Biden handed out medals to officers and others who fought the attackers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica is a land of laws, not chaos,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
At the afternoon speaker\u2019s vote, a number of Republicans tiring of the spectacle temporarily walked out when one of McCarthy\u2019s most ardent challengers Gaetz railed against the GOP leader.<\/p>\n
Contours of a deal with conservative holdouts who have been blocking McCarthy\u2019s rise had emerged after three dismal days and 11 failed votes in an intraparty standoff\u00a0unseen in modern times.<\/p>\n
One significant former holdout, Republican Scott Perry, chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus who had been a leader of Trump\u2019s efforts to challenge the 2020 election, tweeted after his switched vote for McCarthy: \u201cWe\u2019re at a turning point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another Republican holdout, Byron Donalds of Florida, who was repeatedly nominated as an alternative candidate for speaker, switched on Friday, too, voting for McCarthy.<\/p>\n
Trump may have played a role in swaying some holdouts \u2014 having called into a meeting of Republican freshmen the night before, and called other members ahead of voting. He had urged Republicans to wrap up their public dispute.<\/p>\n
Source: AP<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SONNA – Republican Kevin McCarthy\u00a0was elected House speaker on a historic post-midnight 15th ballot early Saturday, overcoming holdouts from his own ranks and floor tensions that boiled over after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority\u2019s ability to govern. Republicans roared in celebration, then embraced their new speaker, chanting \u201cUSA! USA!\u201d With a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":411725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-411724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411726,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411724\/revisions\/411726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}