But they didn’t give a fight

Kevin McCarthy was chosen to the third most important post in the United States - the speaker of the House of Representatives. Political performance in 15 actions

Thanks to the stubborn struggle for the position (15 votes were required!) Kevin McCarthy beat a hundred -year record. For the first time since 1923, during the election of the speaker of the House of Representatives, several rounds of voting were required - then they voted 9 times. 15 Maccarty votes will remain unsurpassed for a long time. But the absolute record, apparently, can no longer beat anyone. The longest speaker’s vote in the history of the USA occurred in 1855-1856. The speaker of the 34th convocation of Congress Nathaniel Pentis Banks from Massachusetts was elected only after 133 rounds and about two months of voting. Then 20 people fought for the post of speaker.

From the very beginning, that is, from January 3, the work of the House of Representatives was paralyzed. The ward cannot deal with any other things until there is no speaker. McCarthy was chosen on the night of last Friday to Saturday. For four days, Republicans, who received a small majority of the votes in the November elections (the full composition of the ward - 435 representatives and the speaker are re -elected every two years), could not dial the necessary 218 votes when voting. A split occurred inside the faction. Some of the extremely conservative congressmen - supporters of the former President Trump - nominated other candidates, explaining their position as follows: “Not Kevin!” In turn, the democrats voted together, casting all their 212 votes to the new leader-52-year-old Khakim Jeffris, the first black legislator, who headed the party faction of one of the chambers of Congress. The congressman from New York became the first leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, born after the Second World War. True, he leads the minority.

The former speaker of Nancy Pelosi after the Democratic Party lost the majority in this room following the results of the November elections, returned to California.

On Monday evening, the congressman from Florida Matt Gates entered the office of McCarthy with a list of requirements of congressmen-trampists. Among the requirements of this group was personal: Gates wanted to get the chairman's place in the key subcommittee of the Armed Forces Committee. McCarthy rejected the requirements. And only faced with a tough position of about two dozen single -party people who were ready to vote for anyone, but not for him, an experienced politician (for the first time McCarthy was elected to Congress in 2006), I realized: I will have to agree. He did this for several days.

The former president also joined the company at his election. True, not immediately. First, Trump in an interview with NBC repeated his favorite “Let's see what happens.” Toward the end of the week, Donald Trump intensified, personally phoned the congressmen, urge to give a voice for “our Kevin”. But this did not have an immediate effect. A group of congressmen-trampists demanded a change in the rule of the decisive participation of the speaker in the distribution of posts of chairmen of the Committee of the House of Representatives (this chamber will coordinate the budget and holds parliamentary investigations).

On Friday evening, it almost reached a straight fight. When Maccarty, by persuasion, managed to pull part of the opportunists to their side, or as the media called “republican dissidents” here, and he already expected victory, the stubborn Gates “for” voted “present” instead of his voice

(as our “abstained” is called here), and this was already the 14th defeat of McCarthy during the vote. I must say, he wanted to postpone him several times in order to calmly conduct further backstage negotiations, but the democrats and group of Trumpists voted for new calculations, and the main contender for the hammer of the speaker of the congress suffered defeat after defeat. When Gates tore off the victory for the 14th time, McCarthy approached the congressman right in the meeting room. A “hot exchange” took place, a contender for the 3rd post in the state was a very upset. The new chairman of the Committee of the House of Representatives for Armed Forces Mike Rogers literally attacked this momment in Gates. The meaning of his remarks: "It is over with you, you will not get posts in the committees!" The fight seemed inevitable, but another congressman-republican from North Carolina Richard Hudson, unceremoniously clasped Rogers by the face, dragged him from the “main troublemaker”. Another congressman, Tim Burchett from Tenessa, called the Chairman of the Committee Rogers the offensive nickname "Rednek" ("Krasnoshevny" - the synonym for the expression "dull village") and suggested that he came to the evening meeting drunk. At these minutes, a member of the House of Representatives of Marjorie Taylor Green from Georgia tried to convince the member of the House of Representatives Matt Rosendale from Montana, another opponent of McCarthy, take her mobile phone and talk with former President Donald Trump, who was on the line. I will add that this circus (that is, the speaker’s election) was broadcast live.

And when the Republicans proposed to postpone the vote until Monday and the counting of votes began, Gates changed his position. The delay was canceled. A new recount occurred. The six most stubborn opponents of McCarthy abstained from voting in the 15th round, it became fewer votes for victory, and this gave McCarthy a long-awaited victory with a score of 216–212 and put an end to the long election of the speaker.

Early in the morning on Saturday, after 14 unsuccessful votes and more than 84 hours after the start of the 118th Congress, the Clack House of Representatives finally declared a new speaker elected. “It was quite easy,” the speaker of the House of Representatives, leaving the hall, sarcastically commented on his victory sarcastically. If suddenly President Biden and Vice President Harris will not be able to fulfill his duties, according to the Constitution to new elections, Kevin McCarthy will become president. Immediately after the victory, he told reporters: “Do not judge our work at this start, judge us by the finish line. I think that the fact that the failure has now occurred only strengthened trust in each other and taught how to work together. ”

President Joe Biden congratulated McCarthy on the victory, saying that he was ready to work with the Republicans "how much it will be possible." A day before, the president at the rally called “little difficulty” and “not my problem” in the House of Representatives.

The first thing the new speaker did was Trump. “I want to especially thank President Trump,” McCarthy told reporters. “I do not think that someone should doubt his influence. He called me and called others. He really helped to get these final voices. The fact that he actually says to our party and the country: we must get together. We must focus on the economy. We must make our boundaries safe. We need to do so much work, and he had a great influence on that all this happened. So thank you, President Trump. ”

Trump answered McCarth’s comments on Saturday, saying: “Thank you, Kevin. It was a great honor for me! " “The process of choosing a“ speaker ”, no matter how crazy he did, made it much more scale and more important than if it was carried out in a more traditional way,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. The former president praised himself: "Thank you, I did a great service to the country!" Trump also stated that the “fake news” were “very kind” in a message about his decisive assistance.

In the past, Kevin McCarthy consistently supported Trump, starting from the moment he began to win the “primaries” on the way to the White House in 2016, and ending with the allegations that the president won the election in 2020. But on January 6, when a crowd of Trump's supporters burst into the Capitol, McCarthy condemned violence, and two days later recognized Biden’s victory in the elections. During the second trial in the case of the impeachment of Donald Trump, Congressman Haima Baitler said that Trump said to McCarthy during the continuing attack of rebels on the Capitol: “Well, Kevin, I think these people are more upset by the elections than you.” However, a few days later McCarthy again spoke about the inaccurate election results and reconciled with Trump. But not with part of the convinced “Trumpists” in the Congress, who did not forgive him for these throwings and critics of “their president”.

In the next two years, the name of Kevin McCarthy will sound constantly. Republicans are going to reanimate an investigation against the son of President Biden - Hunter, to revise the financial and social policy of the current administration,

Conduct an investigation into the circumstances of the hasty withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan (when Trump announced the withdrawal of the withdrawal, McCarthy fully supported him when the Biden team, the current speaker, and then the minority leader, mercilessly criticized the White House). The circumstances of the Covid-19 virus are going to investigate the circumstances. In an attempt to become a speaker, McCarthy made concessions to a group of Trumpists, which quantitatively represents no more than 10 percent of the total number of congressions-republicans. Nevertheless, they, as expected, will be able to actively influence the determination of topics and the terms of the hearings of committees, by the order of nomination of republican bills. And now the vote of one congressman will be enough to raise the question of removing and replacing the speaker.

In general, Kevin McCarthy went to the very top of the American political elite, but at the same time he agreed to make concessions to political opponents and thereby limited his capabilities. In conditions when the Democrats are sitting in the White House and control the Senate, the Republicans will not be easy to “bend their line”.

And the last: the speaker’s elections confirmed that Donald Trump is still early to write off.