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Nehls was not among the eight Republicans who voted to give former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) the boot, but he is generally aligned with the hardliners. Trump has 91 criminal counts pending against him spanning four indictments, with potential penalties totaling more than 400 years behind bars. “A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years’ imprisonment may be imposed,” the Conference Rules of the 118th Congress say. Now that there’s an opening, a handful of House Republicans are calling for it and the former president is both publicly and privately toying with the idea. Fortunately, it does not appear we will have to resolve this question any time soon.
Speaker Johnson to meet with Trump, offers Marjorie Taylor Greene advisory role as own job teeters
It’s unclear if Trump’s visit to Capitol Hill as House Republicans embark on a process to select McCarthy’s replacement would be more of a pep talk or a potential bid for the role. For now, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Patrick McHenry is serving as speaker pro tempore, a temporary position with limited power that does not appear to allow legislation to pass the lower chamber. But internally adopted rules can be changed, or ignored, and the Republican conference could do so if they choose. For those who see Trump becoming speaker as far-fetched, a long line of ambitious House Republicans are already lining up and courting votes. “Trump ain’t going to do it because all he cares about is winning, and his path to 218 votes is unlikely if not impossible,” said a Republican operative directly involved in the speaker's race.
Jury seated in Trump hush money trial
"President Trump, the greatest President of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America First and will make the House great again." Rep. Patrick McHenry will serve as an interim Speaker until a replacement for McCarthy is chosen, although the North Carolina congressman could still be elected for the position permanently. In January, McCarthy needed 15 rounds of voting to get elected as a number of hard-line and MAGA Republicans, including Gaetz, refused to support him. Donald Trump faces dozens of criminal charges, but it’s inaccurate to claim that others including Hunter Biden were never charged with any crimes. Long before the possibility of a Trump speakership, the notion of a non-House member speaker has been catnip for journalists and other politicos, who have engaged in parlor games about which major figure might be able to whip the institution into shape. So have all four Republican chairs of the key House committees – foreign affairs, intelligence, armed services and appropriations - a position driven by the sheer urgency of Ukraine’s predicament.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy
This is not an idle threat, given that there are 18 House Republicans serving in districts won by Joe Biden in 2020 who would think long and hard before voting for Trump for speaker. “It requires that you actually get to the office at a reasonable hour and deal with the kinds of factional disputes that he would rather fuel, rather than settle,” said C. Taylor Greene’s move to oust Johnson was supported by the Kentucky representative Thomas Massie, who also backed an ultimately successful attempt to remove a previous Republican speaker, John Boehner, nearly a decade ago. Branded “Moscow Marjorie” by former Republican representative Ken Buck, who said she gets her talking points from the Kremlin, Taylor Greene went further by accusing Ukraine of waging “a war against Christianity”.
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, with Republicans optimistic about retaking the House majority, there was considerable conversation about who might become the next House speaker. Part of the discussion acknowledged the fact that the speaker doesn’t have to be a sitting member of the institution, which in turn led some to suggest Donald Trump should hold the gavel. A few Republicans have voted "present" so far, making it slightly easier for Mr McCarthy to get a majority - but not enough to make a real difference. They set the House's legislative agenda, control committee assignments, set the vote and work calendar, and are responsible for keeping their party members unified behind major initiatives.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene
On a less high-minded note, how delicious was it to see Ms. Greene on the steps of the Capitol on Saturday, raving about Mr. Johnson’s various “betrayals” and proclaiming him “a lame duck,” even as she hemmed and hawed about when she would move to oust him? All in good time, she said, insisting she felt moved to let her colleagues first “go home and hear from their constituents” over this week’s House recess. “I said from the beginning I’m going to be responsible with this,” she said, in what may be her most laughable line in weeks — a high bar for the House member known for her keen insights on Jewish space lasers. He led one of the main legal challenges to the 2020 election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S.
Can a non-member of Congress be speaker of the House? - CBS News
Can a non-member of Congress be speaker of the House?.
Posted: Thu, 05 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
John Fetterman's White House Correspondents' Dinner Look Splits Opinion
"She didn't like when that January 6 guy was sitting in her chair in her office. She is sure not going to like seeing Donald Trump sitting in her chair." While, technically, he could still become House speaker while indicted, the effort required to engineer it makes the chances of it happening very thin. It’s an irony that shouldn’t be lost on Democrats who, by voting with a group of hard-right rebels earlier this week to expel McCarthy, paved at least the path for Trump to get there.
Capitol by the mob of Trump’s supporters trying to stop the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. On Friday, Trump and Johnson will appear for a press conference on “election integrity” at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club, according to a Trump campaign official. “Once the House has met their responsibility to elect a speaker, [Biden] looks forward to working together with them and with the Senate to address the American people’s priorities,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Tuesday.
“I’ll do whatever it is to help, but my total focus is on being president,” Trump recently said. However, Trump has enough on his plate and, with a 40-plus percentage point lead ahead of his party’s other candidates in the primaries, he’s already the prohibitive favourite to win the Republican nomination. And he’s focused on raising tens of millions of dollars just to finance his legal defence. With the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries coming up, snatching the speakership now would all but ensure that Trump continued to dominate the headlines, sucking up all the oxygen in the room, leaving his rivals flummoxed, and stroking his notorious ego. Some Republican lawmakers are already stating that they will be voting for former President Donald Trump to become House Speaker following the historic ousting of Kevin McCarthy from the role. Advocating for her press corps colleagues has become a second full-time job for NBC News' senior White House correspondent.
Trump’s legal woes, which include two federal indictments, could also play a role in his thought process. Trump has frequently pointed to his position as a presidential candidate as a reason the Justice Department should not be prosecuting him, including that he lacks the time to attend a trial or participate in his own defense. Should he be named speaker of the House, Trump could again try to invoke his position to argue that his trial should be delayed. One of the obvious problems with this scenario is that being House speaker is an incredibly difficult and time-consuming job, which Trump would absolutely hate.
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House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and their fellow Republican impeachment managers walk back through the U.S. Capitol Rotunda after transmitting articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate on Tuesday. "If we allowed that to happen, it would set a disastrous precedent for Congress," he said. "Anytime the House would want to just shut the Senate down, they could send over another impeachment resolution." An official Senate photograph shows senators taking the oath at the start of the impeachment trial on Wednesday. Biden’s speech before nearly 3,000 people was being followed by entertainer Colin Jost from “Saturday Night Live.” Academy Award winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Scarlett Johansson, Jon Hamm and Chris Pines were among other stars.
Speaker Mike Johnson: Trump ‘is not calling the shots. I am calling the shots for the House.’ - NBC News
Speaker Mike Johnson: Trump ‘is not calling the shots. I am calling the shots for the House.’.
Posted: Sun, 04 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Troy Nehls of Texas, Greg Steube of Florida, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia—have already indicated that they will support the former president in voting to select a new House speaker. Both parties will need to state when they are ready to enter into the process of electing a new Speaker. It is unclear exactly when a new election for House Speaker will begin, as this will be the first time in U.S. history that such a vote will not be taking place at the start of a new Congress term. "This week, when the U.S. House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J. Trump for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives," Nehls said in a statement.
He went on to note that despite being similar in age, the two presidential hopefuls have little else in common. Chants accused U.S. journalists of undercovering the war and misrepresenting it. “Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide,” crowds chanted at one point. With hundreds of protesters rallying against the war in Gaza outside the event and concerns over the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the perils for journalists covering the conflict, the war hung over this year’s event. But speakers inside made only passing mention of the conflict despite some having to run a gauntlet of demonstrators. Biden’s speech, which lasted around 10 minutes, made no mention of the ongoing war or the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
So far, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Steve Scalise (R-La.) have announced bids to succeed McCarthy. In the summer of 2021, Democratic Rep. Brendon Boyle introduced a bill that would have allowed only House members to serve as speaker. At the time, Trump called the idea that he might try to become speaker "so interesting." The bill did not become law. But the Constitution doesn't explicitly say that the speaker needs to be serving in the House, although so far, every one has been.
The longest deadlock before that was resolved in 1860 after 44 rounds of ballots. Three days, 11 rounds of voting and countless popcorn emojis later, and the vote to determine to the next Speaker of the House is still no closer to a result. Trump is facing four separate indictments, two in federal cases and two in state cases. In just one of those cases, involving documents he’s charged with keeping after his presidency, one Espionage Act charge alone carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
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