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Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American power, politics and society.

On each episode, I will talk to an American expert or an expert on America

about something that's going on in America in 2023. I am delighted to be joined by Amber Athe,

who is the Spectators Washington editor, and we're going to be talking about the saga over Kevin McCarthy. Now, Amber,

I think we should explain a little bit for our British listeners what's going on here, because

there's this very peculiar story of the fact that the American House of Congress seems unable

at the moment. I think we're currently on the 11th vote, four days to the House of Representatives

would be voting to elect a new speaker and the Republicans have a majority.

But because of a rebellion on the right of the Republican Party,

they've been unable to elect Kevin McCarthy,

who is sort of seen as an establishment choice, but nonetheless has the backing of Donald Trump. What's going on? Well, what's going on

is that the approximately 20 members of the House Freedom Caucus have been opposed to McCarthy's

speakership basically since Republicans won the House. And they've been trying to negotiate a set

of concessions from McCarthy, which include things like having more House Freedom Caucus members

lead committees, having more investigatory power, and then placing limits on the

speakership itself. So limiting the number of members that would be required to force a vote on

ousting the speaker, instituting term limits for members of the House, and basically turning the

speakership into more of a ceremonial position

than one with any real leadership.

But the problem I think in why this debate has gotten so fraud and why there's been so many

votes is that there is a split even within the Freedom Caucus.

...