Why Is Trump Pushing Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House?

There’s a small civil war brewing over the prospect of Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid for House Speaker and the battle lines are being drawn.

On one side, a lineup that opposes McCarthy as some kind of “RINO” within the party. They see McCarthy as part of the reason why the red wave failed to materialize and a tool of the establishment in Washington. On the other side, a push to oust McCarthy and installed a more MAGA-friendly option to run the House and set the agenda.

This is all making for some awkward bedfellows as McCarthy currently boasts the support of former President Donald Trump despite many “MAGA” faithful standing firm in opposition. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, an opponent of McCarthy, took a swipe at Trump and questioned his “HR” skills when it comes to personnel decisions:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) voiced clear disagreement with former President Trump after he supported House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as the next Speaker, saying Trump has not chosen the “best people” to work for him in the past.

“HR was not always his best thing,” Gaetz told the conservative network Real America’s Voice on Monday at a Turning Point USA conference in Phoenix.

Gaetz added that Trump chose a “parade of horribles” to serve in his administration.

“So maybe we oughta have a choice come out of the House that represents the conservative center of our caucus,” he said. “I’ll be for Trump for president, but I will not follow him in supporting Kevin McCarthy for Speaker.”

For most of his faults, McCarthy isn’t the worst option Republicans have been faced with. He’s one of a handful of beltway Republicans that has been able to bridge the divide between the establishment and MAGA world which, by some accounts, makes him a tool of the establishment. However, McCarthy hasn’t waivered in supporting Trump which is what explains the returning favor of Trump backing McCarthy for Speaker of the House.

Trump hasn’t pulled any punches when comes to backing McCarthy, accusing people like Gaetz of playing “dangerous” games and possibly ending up with someone much worse:

“I think it’s a very dangerous game that’s being played. It’s a very dangerous game. Some bad things could happen. Look, we had Boehner, and he was a strange person, but we ended up with Paul Ryan, who was 10 times worse. Paul Ryan was an incompetent speaker,” Trump told Breitbart. “I think he goes down as the worst speaker in history. We took [out] Boehner — and a group of people, some of whom are the same, and they’re very good friends of mine. All those people are very good friends of mine.

“Think of it — we ended up with Paul Ryan. Boehner was like Winston Churchill compared to Paul Ryan. Boehner wasn’t perfect —nobody’s perfect — but Paul Ryan was a disaster for the Republican Party. That’s what we got. Now we have to live with him. He’s destroying Fox and he’s destroying the New York Post. We got to live with this maniac,” he added.

McCarthy can only lose four GOP votes during the Jan. 3 floor vote unless his critics opt to vote present or not partake in the vote, which would bring the threshold down from 218.

The margin of error is razor-thin as noted above. McCarthy can only stand to lose four Republican votes and still have a chance at a majority.

Gaetz isn’t the only MAGA name dumping on McCarthy’s run for House Speaker. A rift erupted this week between Rep. Lauren Boebert and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene over the McCarthy issue as well:

Two of Congress’ most controversial right-wing lawmakers – Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. – are sparring online over whether to support Kevin McCarthy in his bid for House speaker.

Asked by Charlie Kirk, founder of right-wing youth group Turning Point USA, about Greene’s support of McCarthy for speaker, Boebert distanced herself from the Georgia lawmaker, mentioning a conspiracy theory Greene posted online in 2018.

“I’ve been aligned with Marjorie and accused of believing a lot of the things that she believes in,” Boebert said. “I don’t believe in this, just like I don’t believe in Russian space lasers – Jewish space lasers – and all of this.”

Greene on Monday hit back in a tweet, accusing Boebert of engaging in “high school drama.”

As the New York Times noted a few days ago, despite Trump’s backing, McCarthy’s Speakership is anything but assured at this point:

Even Mr. 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 Mr. McCarthy’s side. Mr. Trump, who has announced he is running for president again in 2024, has been calling members who are ambivalent, at best, about Mr. 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.

Mr. Trump, according to people close to him, is not entirely sold on the notion of Mr. McCarthy as a strong speaker. But he considers Mr. McCarthy better than the alternative, including improbable scenarios in which the job instead might go to a moderate who can draw some votes from Democrats, or in which a handful of Republicans defect and help to elect a Democratic speaker.

In the end, McCarthy will probably find some way to quiet his critics and wrangle together enough votes to become the next House Speaker. The alternatives would probably cause more chaos and it’s likely that once McCarthy offers some concessions to people like Gaetz and Boebert, they’ll find a way to fall in line.

After all, Trump is correct in this case that the alternative could be worse.