The House speaker circus remained intense on day three, with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) remaining incapable of cobbling together the votes needed to win. He’s still short of 218, with some 20 Republican House members firmly entrenched in opposition to his speakership bid.
The motion to adjourn barely limped passed the finish line, subjecting us to another media day where they claim a deal is close between McCarthy and this bloc of Republicans who are not budging. These 20 rebels have forced the lower chamber to have debates in the last 36 hours than in the past 18 months. The failure of McCarthy to secure the votes is his fault.
BREAKING: @RepMattGaetz just nominated Donald Trump for Speaker of the House. pic.twitter.com/reBYDFzUvf
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 5, 2023
The anti-McCarthy wing has put forward a string of candidates, from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL). There is no incentive for them back down because their main opposition—McCarthy— doesn’t have the votes for speaker. It was inevitable that someone from this group would nominate former President Donald Trump, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) did yesterday. It wasn’t lost on the former president, who posted a meme that reportedly had one former GOP congressman declare Trump the winner of the “meme wars” (via Mediaite):
Former Republican congressman Denver Riggleman (R-VA) said Donald Trump “wins the meme wars” after CNN’s Dana Bash called the former president a “loser” on Thursday.
As the network covered the ongoing effort by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to convince holdout members of his own party to support his bid for speaker, Trump posted an image of himself as House speaker. On Truth Social, Trump shared an image of him in the speaker’s chair appearing to mock President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
CNN’s Jake Tapper reacted, “An image of him as speaker of the House rubbing his belly and sticking out his tongue is not helpful.”
Yes Trump really posted this... pic.twitter.com/tvLa0FW3aX
— Yanky (@Yanky_Pollak) January 5, 2023
Just absolute perfection, despite Trump only getting one vote. Yet, his picture was on the candidate slate, which alone is enough to trigger the Left.