In the fight to lead the House of Representatives, Trump strives to play the king

After what kevin mccarthy on Tuesday, he didn’t get enough votes to become Speaker of the House of Representatives, a former speaker Donald Trump he held a call with McCarthy and Pennsylvania’s Scott Perry, a leading Republican member of Congress who blocked McCarthy’s candidacy.

Trump’s goal was to unblock the situation.

But if Trump wanted Perry to make a decision quickly, he didn’t:

The next day, Perry cast his vote three times more against by McCarthy.

At 1:15am Thursday on his social media platform, Companion of truthl, Trump said the turmoil was good for the process and predicted a “major Republican victory.”

But by 7:45 pm McCarthy had lost 11 consecutive votes in three days, with no end to the stalemate in sight.

McCarthy’s failure to garner enough votes this week underscored the limits of Trump’s political power within a party that has not controlled the House since 2018, which has lost the Senate and the White House after 2020 and has so far failed to identify the next leader of its narrow majority in the House.

While McCarthy will ultimately succeed, Trump has once again struggled in his role as king of his party.

His handpicked candidates failed to spark the red wave Republicans had hoped for in the November election.

His attempt to install a new Republican leader in the Senate was thwarted. His third consecutive presidential campaign, launched six weeks ago, has been disappointing.

Now, Trump’s influence over many of his loyalists in the House of Representatives has declined in the most public way and on the most public stage:

a reminder that the insurrection in Congress is not so much his creation as a force that preceded him and helped fuel his political ascendancy.

For more than a decade, a group of House Republicans has been trying to disrupt establishment leadership.

The House Freedom Caucus evolved from vestiges of the Tea Party, playing a key role in ousting then-President John Boehner in 2015 and stalling McCarthy’s efforts to become the Republican leader at the time.

Today, most of the 20 Republicans who blocked McCarthy’s spokesman are clear Trump loyalistsincluding several who have already actually backed his run for the White House in 2024.

And even among them, a small group – including Perry – have been involved in negotiations with McCarthy’s team.

“It’s a combination of realizing that his influence isn’t what it used to be and his heart doesn’t seem to be in it,” said Peter T. King, a Republican and former congressman from Long Island, New York.

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who in 2020 unseated a fellow Republican who she said didn’t support Trump enough, openly challenged the former president on the House floor Wednesday, saying she should tell McCarthy to retire from the presidency of the Room. she race rather than turn her attention to the insurgents.

In a later interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Boebert seemed to try to soften the blow, saying:

“I love President Trump. You won’t turn me against him; you won’t turn him against me.”

And in another show of belated deference, Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida who had mocked Trump’s endorsement of McCarthy on Twitter, voted by ear on Thursday for Trump for Speaker of the House.

Later that day, during one of the voting rounds, Gaetz went over and formally appointed to Trump as Speaker of the House with a long speech in which he praised the former president’s management.

The decision to nominate Trump, which some of his allies had been discussing privately for days, was accepted scattered applause in the camera.

Trump has supported McCarthy’s initiative for weeks and has held separate rounds of calls with opponents who strongly objected.

The former president appeared surprised that some of his loyal House lieutenants did not answer him, according to two people familiar with the calls who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Trump, who often tries to avoid being limited in options, stopped making aggressive calls after that.

But he was forced to make his support more public than his aides had planned when he answered his ringing cell phone Tuesday and made a hushed comment to an NBC News reporter, prompting questions about whether he still supported McCarthy.

So he released a public statement Wednesday morning.

But even that failed to budge the 20 or so House members who entrenched themselves against McCarthy.

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, McCarthy’s team had expressed confidence in Trump advisers that they would start making visible progress during the new voting rounds.

But that was eventually proven not to be the case.

A person who spoke to Trump on Thursday said the former president continued to favor McCarthy and seemed puzzled why more opponents than McCarthy, who have undermined significant concessions.

If McCarthy wins, Trump will see it as a test of strength, not weakness.

But having plunged into the leadership race without a clear strategy, Trump’s failure to sway House Republicans has exposed a new political reality for him.

The weapon Trump used to dominate his party for seven years – fear of him – has diminished.

“Trump’s fear factor fell this week, like a rock,” said Scott Reed, a veteran Republican strategist and former policy adviser to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

King agreed, adding:

“I think they’ve realized that it can help them, but it can’t hurt them. I don’t think they’re that scared of it right now. We’re a year, a year and a half away from the next primary.”

Even so, some of McCarthy’s opponents have suggested to Trump that they would change their vote if it were of crucial importance to the former president.

But Trump ignored those offers, instead telling reluctant lawmakers they had to keep negotiating to resolve their differences, according to a person familiar with the talks.

And while Trump has publicly stated his support for McCarthy, the former president has also acknowledged privately their frustrations with the.

Trump complained to some Republican lawmakers about McCarthy’s pressure to censor him after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, speaking of his support for him in dispassionate terms.

“Kevin is not perfect,” Trump told lawmakers privately.

Yet Trump told them he sees McCarthy as the only Republican in the House who could get enough votes to become president, the same reason his advisers say he endorsed McCarthy in the first place.

When asked by some whether they should trust McCarthy, Trump responded by saying they can expel him if they want, with the new powers McCarthy has accepted.

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