Rep. Kevin McCarthy loses more votes for speaker as Republicans face fresh turmoil

Rep. Kevin McCarthy vowed to keep fighting to become the next Speaker of the House even after he suffered humiliating new losses Wednesday at the hands of fellow Republican lawmakers.

McCarthy lost three more votes, dropping 20 GOP votes each time to Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) after the conservative Black lawmaker took up the mantle of a band of far right-wing McCarthy critics.

That was exactly the same margin of loss McCarthy suffered in three losses Tuesday, setting up more potential votes with no obvious resolution in sight.

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) shifted her vote from McCarthy to “present” in the fourth overall vote, a sign his support could be ebbing a bit.

Despite the mounting losses, McCarthy said he will keep fighting to become leader of the Republican majority in the House.

“I feel actually pretty good,” McCarthy told reporters. “If we’re able to work out our differences and take this time, we’ll only be stronger to be able to accomplish the things we want.”

McCarthy falsely claimed he has received the most votes of any candidate — that distinction belongs to Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, the Democratic House leader. Because Democrats are in the minority, Jeffries’ accession to the speakership is extremely unlikely.

McCarthy suggested he would eventually get over the top. “At the end of the day, we’re going to get there,” he told CNN.

Inconclusive talks were said to be continuing between McCarthy allies and some of the Republican lawmakers who have so far torpedoed his bid.

House rules require the body to elect a speaker before it can do anything else, meaning the GOP feuding will effectively put the people’s business on hold indefinitely.

The right-wing rebels who have so far stymied McCarthy say they have no plans to relent.

“Kevin McCarthy is not going to be a speaker,” declared Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), one of the staunchest holdouts.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), another McCarthy nemesis, even pushed for the embattled Republican leader to be ousted from the plush speaker’s office on Capitol Hill unless and until he wins the vote.

Former President Trump on Wednesday sought to intervene in the stalemate for the first time, reiterating his backing of McCarthy in a social media post.

There was no sign that Trump’s backing would shift the race towards McCarthy.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), a key hardliner, admitted getting a call from Trump but said his support would not cause her to switch sides.

“[Trump] needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, ‘Sir, you don not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw,’” said Boebert, speaking out against McCarthy as a fifth vote started.

McCarthy won no more than 203 votes in four rounds of voting, losing at least 19 Republicans from the party’s slim 222-seat majority. He did win the support of controversial Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who took his place in Congress amid a raft of probes into lies about his background.

Although the math could get fuzzy if some members on either side of the aisle were to abstain, McCarthy needs to lose the votes of no more than four fellow Republicans to be sure of victory.

All 212 Democrats have backed Jeffries, who has replaced longtime House Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) in a remarkably drama-free transition.

Pelosi trashed the ongoing circus as a reflection of the Republicans’ failure to deal with the cancer of extremism within their ranks.

“This is a problem of their own making. This is called leadership,” Pelosi said.

Many pundits believe McCarthy’s support may wane as the votes continue because the Republican caucus is filled with a new generation of ultra conservatives, many of them staunch Trump supporters, who want to upend business as usual in Washington.

McCarthy has already agreed to many of the demands of the rebels, some of whom have been agitating for rules changes and other concessions that give the rank-and-file more influence in the legislative process.

But several of them say they will not support McCarthy no matter how many concessions he makes, seeing his humiliation as a victory in itself.

With the Senate and White House in Democratic hands, House Republicans will have little chance to implement their own agenda. But their control of the House will let them carry out what they hope will be damaging probes of President Biden’s son Hunter and other figures hated by their MAGA base, including Dr. Anthony Fauci.