It only lasted a few hours. Designated earlier Tuesday by his peers as a candidate to become Speaker in the American House of Representatives, Republican Tom Emmer threw in the towel almost immediately, the United States Congress sinking further into crisis. A new vote was to take place in the evening to try to find another candidate. Unless Kevin McCarthy, dismissed three weeks ago, makes his return with Trumpist candidate Jim Jordan as his deputy, according to desperate speculations.
After trying for weeks to find a new president for the lower house, the Republicans agreed at midday on the name of Tom Emmer, the party’s number three in the House, after a series of internal votes. But the candidacy of this elected representative from Minnesota, voice of the party establishment, very quickly seemed doomed to failure.
“He’s finished, I killed him”
More than twenty elected officials from his own camp quickly indicated that they would never support him during the vote in plenary session, even though the Republicans only have a very slim majority in the House of Representatives.
Donald Trump’s allies are in fact opposed to him, because he was one of the elected officials who voted in favor of certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. They therefore consider Tom Emmer as lacking loyalty to the former -president. The latter also torpedoed Emmer on Truth Social, before, according to Politico, picking up his phone to ensure that Trumpist elected officials close ranks. “He’s finished, I killed him,” Donald Trump reportedly told a relative. In the process, Emmer announced that he was retiring.
A temporary Speaker, or a McCarthy-Jordan duo?
Nearly three weeks after the impeachment of former Speaker of the Lower House Kevin McCarthy, Republicans’ infighting continues to come to light.
However, the challenges of finding a new “speaker” are high. Without him, it is impossible to hold a vote on a bill; and in the absence of a vote on the budget, the threat of a paralysis of the federal administration in mid-November is real. Without a speaker, the House is also unable to grant President Joe Biden’s request to send emergency aid to Israel and Ukraine.
What solution to get out of the crisis? All attempts to find a candidate from the gathering seem doomed to failure: around twenty moderates refuse to vote for a Trumpist candidate who voted against the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, and dozens of elected officials close to the former president reject any candidate from the party establishment.
Centrists hope to seduce Democrats to make the temporary Speaker-designate, Patrick McHenry, an interim President of the House, with almost full powers. According to NBC, others have put a dual candidacy on the table, with the return of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker and the arrival of Jim Jordan as Deputy Speaker. What is certain is that the clock is ticking: unless elected officials approve the federal budget for 2024 by November 17, the federal administration will be paralyzed, with hundreds of thousands of workers temporarily dismissed. home without pay.