Thursday afternoon, the House went for their seventh, eighth, and ninth rounds of ballots to determine a speaker, only to again fail to elect someone. Other candidates were mentioned, including former and potentially future President Donald Trump, as well as Rep.-Elect Kevin Hern (R-OK), who is to be the new chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), as well as Rep.-Elect Byron Donalds (R-FL) and Rep.-Elect Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). While the latter has received the most Republican votes, he is still shy of the necessary 218 votes and has been losing rather than gaining the necessary support.
Democrats have been delighting in the historically long amount of time spent to choose the Speaker of the House, swear members in, and get down to business, and they've been doing so from the start. Matt earlier highlighted how a Twitter thread perfectly illustrated how out of touch the Democrats look by gloating in the face of such a lengthy process. And boy, are there plenty of Democrats doing so.
While Republicans remain divided on picking a candidate, Democrats have remained completely united around Rep.-Elect Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) as their party leader. On the earlier ballots, they even engaged in theatrics to announce such support.
Arguably even worse, though, are those Democrats who pretend to have an air of importance and dignity with a holier-than-thou attitude. A Thursday press release from the DNC blared, "LOCAL NEWS: Amid GOP Chaos, Biden Bridges Partisan Divide With Infrastructure Law."
The press release went on to claim:
Yesterday, as Republicans continued to fight over the future of their party, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg were busy traveling all over the country to highlight how the president’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is rebuilding America. The split-screen couldn’t be clearer: While Democrats are laser-focused on the issues that impact everyday families, Republicans are the party of extremism and chaos.
Perhaps no one has done so more obviously than former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who passed the baton along to Rep.-Elect Jeffries to replace her.
Wednesday night, Pelosi tweeted about "a responsibility to bring dignity to this body," then called out Republicans for their "cavalier attitude in electing a Speaker is frivolous," which she claimed is "frivolous, disrespectful and unworthy of this institution."
Pelosi, as many pointed out on Twitter, which our friends at Twitchy highlighted, could hardly be considered someone who brought "dignity to this body" when she ripped up then-President Trump's copy of his State of the Union address in 2020.
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) January 5, 2023
As frustrating as it may seem to not be able to get on with official business, Rep.-Elect Chip Roy (R-TX), who has nominated alternatives to McCarthy, including Donalds on the fourth ballot, has made it clear that he is willing to support McCarthy if certain concessions are made.
Critics keeps saying that the House Freedom caucus & anti-McCarthy crowd don’t have any specific demands.
— Tim Meads (@TimMeadsUSA) January 5, 2023
It’s not true.
Here are a few requests from @chiproytx, and you’ll note he has a willingness to be flexible in his demands: pic.twitter.com/raSs7t0vhV
Roy has frequently made his case about getting it right rather than repeating the status quo over social media, in nomination speeches, as well as media during appearances and when speaking to reporters on the street.
"This country needs a change. This country needs leadership that does not reflect this city, this town that is badly broken."
— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) January 4, 2023
"Do you think that the American people want us to continue down the road of what we've been doing?"
The status quo has to END. pic.twitter.com/7Ds9A3lgf4
Chip Roy is right. This is only a crisis for those who want to paint it as one. https://t.co/IYqpxIqUpb
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) January 4, 2023
Rep.-Elect Dan Bishop (R-NC), who nominated Donalds on Thursday ahead of the seventh ballot, has also sought to reassure the American people to have patience and faith.
.@RepDanBishop: "People have suffered, sort of, an anxiety over not knowing what the outcome is. They’ve been accustomed to Washington working the wrong way too long. We will get to a good result, and then we will go to the mat and deliver for the American people." pic.twitter.com/2XakMxLTWq
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 5, 2023
Pelosi's tweet contained an air of smugness and hypocrisy on other issues beyond the speaker race. "We must open the House and proceed with the People's work," she went on to add. This is rich, given that the People's House has been closed for 1,026 days, with the excuses given due to the COVID-19 pandemic and security concerns. Rep.-Elect Bryan Steil (R-WI) had been particularly vocal in calling out how long and unnecessary such a closing has been.
All who serve in the House share a responsibility to bring dignity to this body.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 5, 2023
Sadly, Republicans' cavalier attitude in electing a Speaker is frivolous, disrespectful and unworthy of this institution.
We must open the House and proceed with the People's work.
Further, when it comes to Jeffries, who Pelosi supports, the mainstream media has largely given him a free pass and/or just ignored the election denialism he engaged in with regards to the 2016 presidential election.
Aaron Rupar, meanwhile, as Twitchy also highlighted, was called out for making a fuss to remind people about how "McCarthy is an election denier who has accommodated extremists in his party at every turn."
Rupar’ed again… Claiming Trump had won while legal challenges remained and before the Electoral College had voted was not only entirely legitimate but also good politics (see Hillary Clinton’s advice to Joe Biden). Democrats claimed (and still do) Trump was never really elected. https://t.co/8oj358UMVz
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) January 4, 2023
HuffPo, in giving Rep.-Elect Cori Bush (D-MO) a further platform to espouse hateful rhetoric against Rep.-Elect Donalds, also used the same tactic against another Republican nominee for Speaker. In addition to describing Donalds as a "hardcore supporter of Donald Trump," the Wednesday piece mentioned:
Donalds supported Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was illegitimate, voting to reject state-certified results from Arizona and Pennsylvania. He is close with controversial Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and has opposed gun control and the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
While on MSNBC's "Katy Tur Reports" on Thursday, NBC Correspondent Vaughn Hillyard also spoke of Donalds as an election denier.
Pelosi isn't the only high-profile Democrat to make such smug remarks, far from it. During his remarks earlier on Thursday about illegal immigration, the president said he was "following with great uh... how do I say it," ultimately choosing the word "attention" after looking to Vice President Kamala Harris for some assistance. It's no wonder that Biden had earlier, in those same remarks, referred to the vice president as "President Harris." The official White House transcript went on to cover for the president by adding "Vice" in brackets to claim that's what he meant.
"Are you still monitoring the Speaker's race?"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 5, 2023
BIDEN: "I'm following with great uh...How do I say it?"
KAMALA: "Attention."
Biden: "Attention." pic.twitter.com/raKgZGgmUC
On Wednesday, Biden had said that it was "not my problem" but then went on to say, "I just think it's a little embarrassing that it's taking so long," and that "the rest of the world is looking" to see if we can "get our act together."
