Despite Trump’s lobbying, McCarthy’s speaker bid remains imperiled on the right

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has been working the phones, personally pitching right-wing lawmakers on voting to make Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader he has called “My Kevin,” the speaker of the House.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., the most outspoken far-right member of his conference, is publicly vouching for McCarthy. The California Republican has made private entreaties and public promises to win over his critics, including floating the impeachment of a member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet.

And yet, McCarthy, who is toiling to become speaker next year when the GOP assumes the majority, has so far been unable to put down a mini-revolt on the right that threatens to imperil his bid for the top job.

McCarthy has embarked on the kind of grueling campaign that lawmakers in both parties jockeying for the post have sometimes been forced to perform. But some of the hard-right lawmakers with whom he is attempting to bargain do not appear to have a price, and most care less about legislating than shrinking the federal government — or upending it completely.

“This is why we came to Congress,” Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., said. “This is why we’re here. We’ve got a chance to tip over that apple cart here on Jan. 3, when we elect a new speaker.”

Their top demand has been that McCarthy agree in advance to a snap vote to get rid of the speaker at any time, something he has refused to accept.

John Boehner, R-Ohio, who was run out of the speaker post by the far right, famously described the approach of this faction as “legislative terrorism.” And with a razor-thin majority that only allows him to lose a few votes in the election for speaker, it could be a recipe for disaster for McCarthy.

Even Trump, perhaps the most influential voice in the hard-right faction of the party, has had little success to date in moving lawmakers over to McCarthy’s side. Trump, who has announced he is running for president again in 2024, has been calling members who are ambivalent, at best, about McCarthy’s bid for the speakership and trying to persuade them that it is the best option, according to three people familiar with the calls.

Thirty-six lawmakers voted against McCarthy in a secret ballot vote last month nominating him for the speakership, and four have already vowed to oppose him during the official vote on the House floor on Jan. 3, in which he needs to win a majority of those present and voting — 218 if every member participates.

McCarthy has expressed confidence in his ability to secure the votes, pointing out that a plausible challenger has yet to emerge.

“We’ve been making a lot of progress,” he told reporters Tuesday, adding: “I think people are in a much better place, and I think we’ll all find a place to get together.”

Should he fail to win a majority when the new Congress convenes, members would take successive votes until someone — McCarthy or a different nominee — secured enough supporters to prevail.

But Republicans agitating against him have insisted that McCarthy would not be able to win election on the floor, warning that more defectors would emerge in the coming weeks.

“I don’t think he has a plan, other than to hope that conservatives fold,” Russ Vought, president of the right-wing Center for Renewing America, said of McCarthy in an interview. “And this is not the part of the Republican conference that folds.”

It was not clear whether McCarthy enlisted Trump to help his campaign, or if Trump was simply working on his own. The former president has spoken with Eli Crane, an incoming Republican member of Congress from Arizona, and Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., among others. Crane and Norman were part of a group of seven current and incoming Republican lawmakers who signed a letter with a list of concessions they are demanding from their leaders in the next Congress, including making it easier to force a vote to remove the speaker — something that McCarthy has so far resisted.

Norman, who has described himself as a “hard no” against McCarthy, declined to discuss his call with Trump, describing it as a “private conversation.” He said he was still undecided about whom he would support for speaker. Crane did not respond to requests for comment.

When Nancy Pelosi in 2018 found herself about a dozen votes short of what she would need to secure the speaker’s gavel, she quietly picked off defectors, methodically cutting deals to capture exactly enough support to prevail. Pelosi, renowned for her ability to arm-twist and coax, won seven votes by agreeing to limit her tenure, picked up another eight by promising to implement rules aimed at fostering more bipartisan legislating, and won over her sole would-be challenger by creating a subcommittee chairmanship for her.

For McCarthy, there are likely fewer deals to be made.

The California Republican has already made a series of pledges in an effort to appease the right flank of his party. He traveled to the southern border and called on Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings. He promised Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments for making a series of violent and conspiratorial social media posts before she was elected, a plum spot on the Oversight Committee.

He has threatened to investigate the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, promising to hold public hearings scrutinizing the security breakdowns that occurred. He has been quietly meeting with ultraconservative lawmakers in an effort to win them over. And on Monday night, he publicly encouraged his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government.

Those entreaties have fallen flat for some of the ultraconservative members of his conference.

In an opinion essay, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who is running as a protest candidate in the speaker race, noted that McCarthy had said before the midterm elections that he did not see grounds for impeaching any Biden administration officials. Biggs dismissed McCarthy’s more recent threat against the homeland security secretary.

“That’s adding at least a little thickener to weak sauce,” Biggs wrote, “but it’s not good enough.”

Four lawmakers have said they would oppose McCarthy: Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who called him a “weatherman” rather than a leader; Good, a self-described “biblical conservative” who defeated a Republican member of Congress in 2020 in part by capitalizing on outrage after the incumbent officiated at the same-sex wedding of two of his former campaign volunteers; Biggs, the former Freedom Caucus chair; and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

More could be on the way, including the seven sitting and incoming lawmakers who last week issued McCarthy a list of old demands, warning that “any GOP speaker candidate must make clear he or she will advance rules, policies and an organizational structure” that would ensure a “‘check’ on the swamp and reform the status quo.”