Johnson Wins Speakership, DC Establishment Loses
I’m glad to be wrong. I had thought that the DC Establishment would be able to block a conservative Speaker, but Johnson is in:
It appears that what happened is that conservative Reps were able to force into the open the fact that former Speaker McCarthy had been manipulating the proceedings to defeat each candidate that was put forward. Once that was exposed, McCarthy realized that any hope of regaining the Speaker’s gavel was gone. Two earlier comments:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/must-see-matt-gaetz-gives-dirty-details-behind/
MUST SEE: Matt Gaetz Reveals the Dirty Details Behind the Republican Old Guard’s Attempt to Derail Mike Johnson’s Vote for House Speaker (VIDEO)
The link provides a link to Gaetz talking with Bannon as well as a transcript of much of it. It details McCarthy's role in all this.
What Gaetz reveals in detail is how Kevin McCarthy has been working the conference to undermine any other Speaker candidate so that McCarthy would be renominated as the only possible alternative. The insight and details are really interesting.
Obviously, this is a huge win for Gaetz, as well as for other conservatives. Perhaps not so obiously, this looks like a major defeat for McConnell, who had been working behind the scenes against any non-RINO speaker.
What can we expect from Speaker Johnson. It’s dangerous to prognosticate. Presumably his allies may receive favorable treatment with regard to committee assignments, etc. But I’ll go out on a limb.
This whole impasse had very much to do with conservative opposition to open ended funding for the war on Russia. Zhou and McConnell and McCarthy had been trying to bundle a huge “aid” package through, the latest tactic being to package it with money for Taiwan and Israel. The first big test for Johnson may be whether he will break the package up—demand separate votes on each component. That may not stop any particular component, but it will create accountability for each member’s vote. There will be a record. If Johnson fails in this, well …
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/25/neocons-fear-speaker-mike-johnson-could-bring-an-end-to-ukraine-war-cash/
Call me naive, but I’m shocked at the perfidy and dishonesty of McCarthy. I had no idea “Speaker Kev” was capable of such skullduggery, such blatant flouting of the rules. I hope his career in DC is finished, unless his donors find a way he can fail upwards…and we owe a lot to Gaetz.