ATLANTA — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene confirmed to Channel 2 Action News on Wednesday that she is personally calling the Republican holdouts who have voted against Rep. Kevin McCarthy for U.S. Speaker of the House.
Greene told Channel 2′s Richard Elliot that she and former President Donald Trump are trying to sway the 20 holdouts to vote yes for McCarthy.
Tuesday was the first day of the new Congress and McCarthy lost multiple votes to regain the House Speaker position. It was the first time in 100 years that a nominee for House speaker could not take the gavel on the first vote.
One of McCarthy’s strongest supporters in this vote has been Greene. She has blasted her fellow far-right members of Congress for not supporting McCarthy.
“They’ve been given everything they were asking for, and they still voted no,” Greene told Elliot. “I was so happy that President Trump has been talking to them on the phone and I think we’re going to see them start coming around.”
The House was expected to reconvene at noon on Wednesday, but Greene said she wasn’t sure if there would be a vote during the day so Republicans could continue to negotiate.
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One of those 20 holdouts is U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens.
On Tuesday, Clyde told reporters that he and the other McCarthy critics were “still in negotiations,” but he declined to say what the group hoped to achieve or receive in exchange for ending their opposition to his speakership, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Clyde was the only Georgia Republican who did not support McCarthy during the three cycles of voting. The Athens lawmaker supported Arizona U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs the first time, but he and the other 18 lawmakers all coalesced around Ohio U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan during the second series of votes. In the third, a 20th member joined them: Florida U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds.
Channel 2 Action News has contacted Clyde’s office for comment on this story, but so far we have not heard back.
Not since 1923 has a speaker’s election gone to multiple ballots, and the longest and most grueling fight for the gavel started in late 1855 and dragged out for two months, with 133 ballots, during debates over slavery in the run-up to the Civil War.
The standoff over McCarthy has been building since Republicans won the House majority in the midterm elections. While the Senate remains in Democratic hands, barely, House Republicans are eager to confront Biden after two years of the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress. The conservative Freedom Caucus led the opposition to McCarthy, believing he’s neither conservative enough nor tough enough to battle Democrats.
To win support, McCarthy has already agreed to many of the demands of the Freedom Caucus, who have been agitating for rules changes and other concessions that give rank-and-file more influence in the legislative process. He has been here before, having bowed out of the speakers race in 2015 when he failed to win over conservatives.
If McCarthy could win 213 votes, and then persuade the remaining naysayers to simply vote present, he would be able to lower the threshold required under the rules to have the majority.
It’s a strategy former House speakers, including outgoing Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Republican Speaker John Boehner had used when they confronted opposition, winning the gavel with fewer than 218 votes.
Said McCarthy late Tuesday at the Capitol: “You get 213 votes, and the others don’t say another name, that’s how you can win.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
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