Kevin McCarthy rang in a defiant tone after a seventh consecutive defeat in his bid to become House speaker as he said it was fine if some processes “take a little longer” and don’t “meet your deadline”.
Mr McCarthy has continued to suffer a string of embarassing defeats and multiple rounds of voting for electing a new speaker in the House of Representatives has led the contest to become the longest seen in 164 years.
The House on Thursday adjourned for the third time in as many days with a stalemate.
Despite this, Mr McCarthy told reporters after the adjournment that “if this takes a little longer and it doesn’t meet your deadline that’s okay. Because it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.” He added: “If we finish well, we’ll be very successful.”
The California Republican remained adamant that he would emerge a victor once the process concluded. But even Republicans aligned with the leadership are beginning to acknowledge the scope of their party’s disarray, calling the process “messy” as it transpired.
“It’s a feature, not a bug,” Wisconsin representative Mike Gallagher argued in his speech nominating his ally, Mr McCarthy, for the fourth time.
House Democrats, however, have remained unified behind Hakeem Jeffries and voted consistently for him throughout.
Twitter boss Elon Musk has weighed in on the stalement and lent his support to Mr McCarthy. Mr Musk and Mr McCarthy have been friends for years. He has also been a political donor to the California Republican, giving $13,000 to Mr McCarthy’s congressional campaigns.
Mr McCarthy’s detractors, including Colorado representative Lauren Boebert said: “There are no concessions. The deal is over with him. He does not have the votes. He will not become speaker.”
Ms Boebert had said on the House floor on Wednesday that her “favourite president” Donald Trump, called her to say, “We need to knock this off.”
“I think it actually needs to be reversed. The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you do not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw,” she said.
The California Republican has still not been able to lock in the 218 votes he needs to get the gavel despite proposing major concessions to hardline conservative opponents, including agreeing to propose a rules change that would allow just one member to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker.
As he left the House floor on Thursday, Mr McCarthy said the negotiations had yielded “a little movement” and denied that the concessions he had offered would undermine his own speakership.
“Has it undercut the power of all the other speakers? So why would it cut mine? It’d only be a weaker speaker if I was afraid of it.”
