Table Of Content
- Kevin McCarthy elected speaker of the House following chaos on the floor
- He has Trump's stamp of approval, sort of
- Congressman Mike Johnson Elected Speaker of the House
- The divisions playing out in the Capitol this week have posed problems for Kevin McCarthy at home, too.
- House voting now to pass resolution in support of Israel in war against Hamas

The latest funding bill to avoid a federal government shutdown lacks additional funding for Ukraine. "Sadly, because I am in California to mourn the loss of and pay tribute to my dear friend Dianne Feinstein, I am unable to retrieve my belongings at this time,” Pelosi said in a statement, referring to the California senator who died last week. The congressman temporarily leading the House of Representatives as interim speaker is a top ally of Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted Tuesday from the speaker’s chair. His predecessor, Frederick Gillett of Massachusetts, also had the top job for less than five years. But when he left after the 1924 session, his party was still firmly in control and had just elected President Calvin Coolidge to a full term.
Kevin McCarthy elected speaker of the House following chaos on the floor
Pats on the back and smiles were exchanged, and many turned their attention away from the TVs. At the same time, Mr. Gaetz had reportedly sought a subcommittee chairmanship in the House Armed Services Committee. The dramatic moment was captured on C-SPAN’s video cameras, which, lacking the typical restraints placed upon them in a House with a speaker, were free to show whatever moments from the floor its operators deemed newsworthy. Even by the heated standards of the tensions that flared among House Republicans during their four-day push to elect a speaker, what happened on the House floor around 11 p.m.
He has Trump's stamp of approval, sort of
It's a stunning rise for the conservative Donald Trump ally and low-ranking member of the GOP leadership team who is now second in line to the presidency. While known for his affability, Johnson is arguably the most ideologically conservative person to serve as speaker since Newt Gingrich in the 1990s, and he played an instrumental role in the GOP's effort to overturn the 2020 election. WASHINGTON — House lawmakers on Wednesday elected little-known Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as the 56th speaker of the House, capping more than three weeks of dysfunction and chaos on Capitol Hill.
Mike Johnson is the new speaker of the House. Here's what happens next. - CBS News
Mike Johnson is the new speaker of the House. Here's what happens next..
Posted: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Congressman Mike Johnson Elected Speaker of the House
Representative Mike Johnson, a little-known social conservative from Louisiana, emerged on Tuesday night as the latest contender for the post after Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid only hours after securing the nomination. Mr. Emmer’s downfall followed a swift backlash from the right, including former President Donald J. Trump, that left his candidacy in shambles and the G.O.P. as divided as ever. He once shared the story with a mostly Democratic audience at a congressional hearing on slavery reparations, and he was surprised to hear boos as he spoke, he later recounted to the Council for National Policy, an assembly of conservative donors known for its strict secrecy. Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican and the first to be nominated for speaker following Mr. McCarthy’s ouster, was ultimately seen as insufficiently pro-Trump by too many of his colleagues. Mr. Johnson was only able to emerge as his party’s nominee for speaker this week after three other G.O.P. nominees before him were unable to rally enough support. In the years before he arrived in Congress in 2017, Mr. Johnson worked as an attorney and spokesman for the anti-abortion-rights and anti-gay group Alliance Defense Fund — now called the Alliance Defending Freedom.

His elevation to speaker from such a low-level post is extremely rare and reminiscent of former Illinois Republican Rep. Denny Hastert's rise in 1999 from chief deputy whip to speaker, in the wake of Georgia Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich's resignation as speaker. "He's a really nice guy. He's a true family man. He's a man of faith, gets along with everybody. It doesn't mean he's not principled or conservative — clearly he is," LaHood said in an interview. "But I think he was viewed as the least objectionable person in the process, and he was in the right place at the right time."
Mike Johnson is now House speaker. Here’s the latest.

It was a significant decision considering that Johnson has slow-walked the aid package and remained noncommittal about a path forward until just this week. Following his work on George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, he was appointed special assistant to the labor secretary in 2001, according to his congressional bio. In 2004, at age 29, he was elected to Congress, becoming one of the youngest lawmakers at that time.
The little-known congressman was first elected in 2016, representing a solidly Republican part of north and western Louisiana. He has ascended through the ranks, chairing the conservative Republican Study Committee and holding the position of House Republican Conference vice chair. He sits on the Judiciary Committee (and chairs a subcommittee on the Constitution), the Armed Services Committee and the newly created select committee on "Weaponization of the Federal Government." As House Republicans gathered earlier in the week to select their third nominee for speaker, Trump vowed to remain on the sidelines of the race. But hours after Emmer won the nod in a closed-door vote by the conference Tuesday morning, the former president lambasted the Minnesota Republican, writing on Truth Social that "voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake."
At Columbia, Speaker Johnson booed and heckled, calls on its president to resign if she can't 'bring order' to protests - ABC News
At Columbia, Speaker Johnson booed and heckled, calls on its president to resign if she can't 'bring order' to protests.
Posted: Wed, 24 Apr 2024 23:37:30 GMT [source]
DOJ refuses to comply with congressional subpoena for audio of Biden’s interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur
That would mean Mr. McCarthy needs just two more in his column, and potentially just one if two or more of his opponents do not vote or vote present. Mr. Trump’s call into the chamber came on the two-year anniversary of the riot by his supporters to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s win over Mr. Trump. “I think the House is in a lot better place with some of the work that’s been done to democratize power out of the speakership, and that’s our goal,” he said.
House voting now to pass resolution in support of Israel in war against Hamas
Capitol while also traveling across the country to report on how decisions in Washington affect people where they live and work. But the speech infuriated Mr. Trump, and Mr. McCarthy quickly worked to get back in the former president’s good graces, traveling to his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, three weeks later to meet with him. They also were unhappy that he had suggested in an interview on Fox News that the House committee investigating the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, had the political aim of damaging Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. But after former President Donald J. Trump placed phone calls to a group of key holdouts, and a frenzied round of haggling on the House floor, Mr. McCarthy was broadly grinning again. In 2021, Democrats, newly in control of Washington, agreed to overhaul and rebrand the practice, changing the name from earmarks to “community project funding,” and introducing more limits and transparency.
And he will need to lead a conference deeply divided over foreign policy as Congress considers the Biden administration’s $105 billion funding request for Israel, Ukraine and the southern border. In a speech that traced his ascent up the political ladder in Louisiana to Congress, Mr. Johnson pledged to try to “restore the people’s faith in this House.” He cited sending aid to Israel, fixing a “broken” southern border, and reining in federal spending as his top legislative priorities. "That was a very tense moment, and I was just trying to play a role to keep the tensions down," Hudson said as he left the floor. In his acceptance speech, McCarthy promised that the House would be a check on President Joe Biden and his policies. The California Republican’s narrow victory came on the 15th ballot — the fifth-longest speaker vote in American history by number of ballots, and the longest such vote in 164 years. Lisa Desjardins is a correspondent for PBS NewsHour, where she covers news from the U.S.
In exchange, when the clerk read the roll call on the 12th ballot Friday, 13 of the 20 conservative rebels switched their votes to McCarthy, handing him a surge of momentum after a grueling week of defeats. Late on Friday night, just as it appeared that Mr. McCarthy was finally going to win the speaker’s gavel that had eluded him for so long, it was suddenly yanked away from him at the last minute, in a highly charged moment on the House floor when his few remaining adversaries refused to bow. Talking with reporters, he gamely brushed off the notion that his historic and humiliating slog to election — the most protracted such contest since 1859 — foretold any troubles ahead for him in governing with an unruly and narrow majority. While it was long before the dawn of Twitter, super PACs and C-SPAN, things really haven’t changed all that much in Congress. She told The Hill shortly after starting the job that she had taken diction classes to prepare and had done a three-minute audition that involved reading out a resolution, amendment, handwritten amendment, presidential message and bill. Two Republicans who were absent for personal reasons from votes earlier in the day, Ken Buck of Colorado and Wesley Hunt of Texas, were expected to be back in time for the vote.
The problem was compounded by the fact that the result of the dispute would determine whether the Whigs or the Democrats held the majority. Neither party agreed to permit a speakership election with the opposite party's delegation participating. Finally, it was agreed to exclude both delegations from the election and a speaker was finally chosen on December 17. John Boehner was elected speaker when the 112th Congress convened on January 5, 2011, and was subsequently re-elected twice, at the start of the 113th and 114th Congresses. "We'll be talking about the support and what's necessary to get it. We have to ensure that Vladimir Putin is not successful and I think all the House Republicans are united in that cause," he told reporters, despite opposition from many Republicans to more aid for Ukraine. "We'll be talking about how that's going to be done here in the coming days and it's a top priority."
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