In the chaos surrounding the vacant chairmanship of the US House of Representatives, the Republican power struggle continues. Now eight more MPs are applying for the job. Among them are six candidates who wanted to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory.
In the search for a new chairman of the House of Representatives, nine Republican members initially threw their hat into the ring on Monday. In a closed session, the candidates introduced themselves and answered questions about how they would carry out the office.
The field quickly dwindled to eight candidates when Republican Dan Meuser used his presentation to announce his withdrawal. “People are angry, people are frustrated, people are blaming us for what’s wrong, and in some ways they’re right. So we have to respond. We have to fix this.” It is time for the party to pull itself together.
Six Trump loyalists among applicants
Six of the remaining eight new candidates for speaker – Jack Bergman, Byron Donalds, Kevin Hern, Mike Johnson, Gary Palmer and Pete Sessions – wanted to overturn Donald Trump’s election defeat against US President Joe Biden in 2020. The other two candidates, Tom Emmer and Austin Scott, did not vote to block certification of the election results at the time.
The House of Representatives has been leaderless since October 3rd after the previous chairman, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted until November 17th following factional fights between right-wing hardliners and more established Republicans over interim funding for the US government.
The Republicans now want to nominate a candidate in a closed session today at 9 a.m. (local time/1300 GMT).