Former GOP Rep Has Bold Prediction for What's Going to Happen to McCarthy Now After Losing 4 Votes
The second day for the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives has begun, with yet another vote to elect a new speaker of the House that ended with no winner. And one former representative has a very pointed description of Kevin McCarthy, the man who is desperately trying to capture the chamber’s top seat.
On Tuesday, former Rep. David Jolly said that all the failed votes to put California’s McCarthy in the speaker’s chair on Tuesday might be the final nail in the coffin of his political career instead of its elevation.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace on Tuesday, Jolly, who served as Florida’s 13th District representative from 2014 to 2017, blasted McCarthy and insisted that he is not trusted by those in Washington.
McCarthy sat for election to House speaker through three failed votes Tuesday, the first time in one hundred years that the speaker’s chair was so hotly contested. McCarthy failed to reach the 218 votes needed to win the position as the “Freedom Caucus” stood solid in opposition to his bid.
But instead of marking the campaign for speaker as just the next step in McCarthy’s rise, Jolly thinks it just might represent the end of his political career.
“I personally think Kevin McCarthy’s done,” Jolly told Wallace, according to Mediaite. “He might have one last shot behind closed doors, but I think his run of the speakership is probably done.”
Indeed, by Jolly’s reckoning, he thinks the multiple failed efforts and the opposition he is facing will be the first step toward McCarthy’s eventual resignation from Congress.
The problem is, Jolly said, that “nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy.”
“Kevin McCarthy can’t be trusted because he will say one thing to one person and another to another. Understand what’s in the balance here. There are chairmanships, where he’s promised multiple things to multiple people, and he can’t be trusted,” Jolly exclaimed.
Jolly added that Nancy Pelosi “ruled with an iron fist but velvet glove. You didn’t cross her.” And a previous GOP House speaker, John Boehner, ran his House like a “disciplinarian,” who representatives did not oppose if they knew what was good for them. Jolly also noted that people didn’t oppose Paul Ryan when he was speaker because “he was your friend and brother, and you didn’t want to cause him harm.”
But Jolly insisted that, “Kevin McCarthy can’t be trusted, and he’s showing that in the way he is trance acting with others to get to 218.”
“Well, what happens,” Jolly added, “now the kids realize they get to rule the playground, and Kevin McCarthy as the playground monitor can’t get control of this.”
Finally, Jolly had a very dark read on McCarthy’s future.
“And I would be surprised, Nicole, if Kevin McCarthy is in the House of Representatives a year from now. I think he resigns,” Jolly concluded.
Indeed, as Wednesday’s session started, McCarthy lost an unheard of fourth vote for speaker.
One thing seems sure, Kevin McCarthy can’t seem to drum up any loyalty, despite the fact that he has been the acting majority leader since the 2022 election.
Still, he did find support from ultra-conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia who blasted those refusing to vote for him for speaker, essentially calling them traitors to the Republican voters who put them in the majority.
“If the base only understood that 19 Republicans voting against McCarthy are playing Russian roulette with our hard earned Republican majority right now,” she tweeted on Tuesday. “This is the worst thing that could possibly happen.”
If the base only understood that 19 Republicans voting against McCarthy are playing Russian roulette with our hard earned Republican majority right now.
This is the worst thing that could possibly happen. https://t.co/ncY6GgGIM1
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) January 3, 2023
McCarthy also got the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who urged the House to “close the deal.”
The voting is already underway on Wednesday, but even if McCarthy does eventually win, the whole incident has already damaged his leadership and has been incredibly humiliating.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
