Only the Current House Chaos Could Lead to This Nomination for Speaker

Matt Vespa | October 04, 2023 7:30 AM

It won’t happen, but with Jurassic Park-like mayhem erupting on the Hill—why not? There is a vacancy for House speaker right now, as Kevin McCarthy was the first to be ousted in a motion to vacate vote, where several Republicans sided with Democrats to usurp the California congressman from his leadership post. The vote to elect a new speaker won’t happen until next week. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is the speaker pro tempore. House Republicans must find someone who can easily secure 218 ‘ayes’ to avoid another circus.

We cannot afford to have the round-robin of votes as we saw from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who filed the motion to vacate against McCarthy when McCarthy was first given the gavel earlier this year. Donald Trump? It’s fun to think about, but that’s not going to happen, and I don’t think the former president even wants that job (via The Hill):

Sean Hannity says Donald Trump has been contacted about possibly being an “interim Speaker of the House” and asks Congressman Jim Jordan if that is a reality. pic.twitter.com/Gy86UjDnRI
— ALX 🎃 (@alx) October 4, 2023

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) announced late Tuesday he will file paperwork to nominate former President Trump to be the next Speaker of the House.
“This week, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Nehls said in a statement. “President Trump, the greatest President of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America First and will make the House great again.”
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was ousted as Speaker on Tuesday in a historic vote after eight Republicans joined all Democrats in voting him out of the role. Nehls voted against attempts to remove McCarthy.
The Speaker of the House is not required to be a sitting member of Congress, though no Speaker has ever held the role without being a member.
Before Republicans won back the House in the 2022 midterms, Trump said he would not be interested in taking the top job.
“No, I think that it’s not something I wanted. A lot of people bring it up. It’s brought up all the time,” he said last March. “No, it’s not something I want to do. I want to look at what’s happening, and then we’re going to be doing something else. No, it’s not something I would be interested in.”

The former president has other worries, like the multiple trials he’s facing at the behest of anti-Trump attorneys. Also, the optics are already a shambles. This act is exactly what could cost the GOP the House. Having Trump as speaker, in this hypothetical, would crown us the kings of chaos and dysfunction in the eyes of most voters. The Republican Party is seeing their preference numbers in handling the economy, crime, and immigration spike. The economy figures haven’t been this high for the GOP since Eisenhower. These antics place a lot of good political ammunition that can be used against Democrats at risk.

We don’t know who the next speaker will be; that vote is set for next week.