A Texas Republican said he would nominate Donald Trump to be the next speaker of the US House of Representatives, after the party completed the unprecedented removal of one of its own, Kevin McCarthy.
Troy Nehls said: “This week, when the US House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J Trump for speaker of the US House of Representatives.
“President Trump, the greatest president of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America first and will make the House great again.”
The speaker does not have to be a member of Congress, though no speaker has ever assumed the role without holding a seat.
Trump’s name has been floated before, including during the 15-vote marathon rightwingers put McCarthy through in January before allowing him to take up the gavel.
On Tuesday, Nehls was not among the rightwingers who voted to remove McCarthy. Another congressman, Greg Steube of Florida, also said he would back Trump for speaker.
Trump is the clear frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary, notwithstanding 91 criminal charges (for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments) and civil threats including a New York fraud trial and a defamation trial in the same city arising from a rape allegation a judge said was “substantially true”.
Speculation continues about what it might take to knock Trump out of the presidential race. In a book published on Tuesday, the author Michael Lewis reported that the disgraced cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried considered offering Trump $5bn to step aside.
On Fox News on Tuesday, the host Sean Hannity, long close to Trump, said “some House Republicans” had “been in contact with and have started an effort to draft” Trump as speaker.
Trump has said he does not want to be speaker. Hannity, however, said the former president “might be open to helping the Republican party, at least in the short term, if necessary”, while still running for president.
Jim Jordan of Ohio, a possible candidate for speaker, told Hannity: “He’d be great, but actually I want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States. But if he wants to be speaker, great. That’s where we need him, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue [the White House], but if he wants to be speaker, that’s fine too.”
Observers were quick to pour cold water.
David Frum, a former aide to George W Bush, pointed to House ethics rules, saying: “Why Trump won’t take the speaker job in one Google search.”
Sean Casten, a Democratic congressman from Illinois, pointed to House Republicans’ own rules, which say: “A member of the Republican leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment may be imposed.”
Jake Sherman, a founder of Punchbowl News, wrote simply: “This will not happen. We can all move on from this.”
