As the standoff over who will become the next Speaker of the House continues into its third day, Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk made his position clear. In an early Thursday morning tweet, Musk expressed his support for House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. In a second post, he asked, “If not McCarthy, then seriously who?”
Musk’s choice of McCarthy puts him at odds with both the anti-McCarthy Republicans and the House Democrats. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this is that Musk is in agreement with former President Donald Trump. As they say, politics makes for strange bedfellows.
Kevin McCarthy should be Speaker
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 5, 2023
Subtle, but I am beginning to suspect opinions differ on this matter …
If not McCarthy, then seriously who?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 5, 2023
Love him or hate him, McCarthy has now made so many concessions to the group of 20 to win their support that their continued resistance seems to have more to do with personal grievances than real issues.
Musk is right to ask, “If not McCarthy, then seriously who?”
In the sixth ballot, McCarthy won Republican 201 votes (down from 203 in earlier ballots) and Rep.-elect Byron Donalds garnered 20 votes during the fourth, fifth and sixth ballot rounds. It seems to me it would be much easier to get McCarthy to 218 than Donalds.
Over the past couple of days, we’ve heard repeatedly from pundits and politicians that democracy is messy and we must let the process play out. But democracy is also based on majority rule. McCarthy has garnered the support of over 90 percent of Republican members and Donalds has the backing of just 10 percent. His share of the votes did not increase in the three ballots since he was nominated.
Ahead of the seventh ballot, McCarthy hoped the additional concessions made overnight to the 20 Republicans opposed to his speakership would be enough to provide him with the 218 votes he needs to win.
McCarthy was nominated by Rep.-elect John James of Michigan, who called for unity among the Republican members. He told his colleagues that the “issues that divide us today are much less severe that they were in 1856. In fact, there’s far more that unites us, than divides us, regardless of our political party of ideology.”
“The issues today are over a few rules and personalities. While the issues at that time were about slavery and whether the value of a man who looks like me was 60% or 100% of a human being,” James said.
The preliminary results of the seventh ballot show another loss for McCarthy. The numbers are unchanged which is extremely disappointing.
House Republicans need to get it together soon. If they can’t unite on a Speaker, how will they unite around issues and initiatives once the legislative session begins?
Politics is about compromise. McCarthy has shown he is willing to make concessions. The minority has not.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Kevin McCarthy, but at this point, there is no other rational choice.
Musk is right. McCarthy should be Speaker.
A previous version of this article appeared in The Western Journal.
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I am not disappointed in the bruhaha over electing a new Speaker, not one bit. In fact, I am encouraged to see some real conservative congress-critters actually stand for something other than ‘play nice with Dems in DC’ politics. The Establishment GOP (call them RINOs or NEOCONs or ‘go along to get along swamp types’ or ‘democrat-lite so-called conservatives’) simply doesn’t get it and hasn’t gotten ‘it’ since 2016…..(now conjecture why Trump really got elected – it wasn’t because he represented business as usual in DC).
IMHO, real conservatives are sick and tired of the Dems rolling over (as a monolithic voting block) on conservative ideas, conservative legislation, conservative principles and anything that is pro-American. Voters like me are tired of the McConnell’s and McDaniel’s lukewarm politics and consistent giveaways to progressive Dems. My wish is for a genuine butt-kicker to be put in as the new GOP Speaker, one who will take apart every woke agenda, every overbearing federal government agency and every liberal cheat in DC. It’s my bet that Mr. McCarthy won’t even approach doing that….. he’ll simply mouth some media tested bromides and it will be business as usual. McCarthy is the embodiment of political capitulation. Not my Speaker….
With McCarthy garnering 90%, but requiring more, it says that he should step aside to stop the race, because one thing many are saying is just one side of the story, that he has 90%, so the other 10% owe it to him. Ever consider that? This entitlement garbage is growing old. Those 10% are doing a service for the future. We are better off with the House out of session than we are with them in, based on my entire life. Look at it from that perspective.
If this takes a couple months, so what? It puts politicians on notice.
With all due respect Elizabeth, you are wrong. You are missing the most critical element to understand, just like Musk is. A candidate that can get 218 votes will not emerge until KM steps aside. Most of his supporters won’t abandon him until he is out. We’ve had 8 votes and he is going backwards.
He should step aside and open the floor for a real debate about who should be Speaker. I think they would have a Speaker within a day if KM stepped aside. He is the road block and has been told for months that he didn’t have the votes. He thought he could bully his way in with pressure from Fox News, Trump and the establishment. Thankfully, we have 20 Congressmen who care about the party base more than getting on the lobbyist and donors good side.
The Speaker has always required a majority. The fact that KM can’t get it, is evidence of how awful he is. His camp keeps saying he has made the concessions, but the rebels say he hasn’t. I know who I will believe and it won’t be the camp that leaks to Politico.
KM will give them things he can work around by controlling the rules committee. That’s the only way to keep him in check and he won’t give on it. The reason is that he plans to betray these promises as soon as it is convenient, because that is who KM is and has always been. Otherwise, he’d be willing to make those concessions to get to be the Speaker.
I think that would be the right thing for McCarthy to do. It might even increase his own prospects for becoming Speaker.
Anyone who wants something like that so bad, should never be given the title. Something is flat wrong with his desire to be Speaker.
Musk is a 5th Generation Warfare pawn. With half of Twitter’s (real) audience bailing out after the censoring of Republicans, the techy-globalist-pukes saw they weren’t controlling the narrative, so they had to get everyone back in. Thus the Musk move. Of course, he supports McCarthy–McCarthy is the no-change, uni-party pick. But none of it matters because Musk is Mr. Neurolink, which is just the physical apparatus of what they can do remotely without all the gadgetry. If Trump wanted to free the people, he would have put a stop to it. He didn’t, so…