Nov. 16, 2022: House Republicans to watch if McCarthy falls short

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🗓️ 16 November 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

You’ve heard allies of Rep. Kevin McCarthy say it a gazillion times — and they’ll say it another gazillion times over before the House speaker vote in January: You can’t beat somebody with nobody. But what if history repeats itself? What if McCarthy, as in his 2015 bid for the speakership, fails to appease the renegade right and falls short of the 218 votes he needs to seize the gavel? With 31 House Republicans spurning McCarthy in Tuesday’s nominating vote — and with McCarthy likely able to afford no more than three or four defections based on current election returns — the question is more than academic. To be clear, Team McCarthy and most GOP lawmakers tell us they believe the California Republican will get 218 — eventually. But if he can’t, Playbook co-author Rachael Bade stops by the show to discuss the most likely alternative members mentioned during our travels on the Hill this week. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the Host and Senior Editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the Executive Producer of POLITICO Audio.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Presented by Meta.
0:02.1	Hey, good morning, Playbookers.
0:04.2	On Rogum Wendabalyn, it's Wednesday.
0:06.2	If Kevin McCarthy isn't Speaker, then who else could it be?
0:09.5	It's your Politico Playbook Daily Briefing.
0:15.4	One thing we've been tracking here at Playbook is Representative Kevin McCarthy's attempt
0:19.8	to become House Speaker.
0:21.2	Here's a question, though. If the gavel doesn't end up with McCarthy, then who else
0:25.2	could it possibly be? Playbook's Rachel Bade has been tracking all of this for us, and she's
0:29.6	here to mention a few possible alternatives. Rachel, how's it going? Welcome back, by the way.
0:34.0	Thanks for goo. Happy to be back. All right. So just to quickly recap what happened on Tuesday,
0:39.2	the House Republican Conference voted for McCarthy to be its leader. McCarthy won 188 to 31 against
0:45.2	Arizona Representative Andy Biggs who put up a challenge. So it's worth noting right there.
0:49.5	McCarthy's going to need almost all of the 31 people that just voted against him when the vote for Speaker
0:54.6	happens in January, give or take how these last couple of house races go. All right. So let's start
0:58.8	at the top. The first person you mentioned, Representative Steve Scalise. Why is he considered
1:03.5	the first possible alternative? So Scalise has been McCarthy's right hand for the past few years.
1:08.6	He has been whip for the Republicans, the person who sort of
1:12.0	muscles up votes since 2015. So he has this sort of well-oiled operation already up and ready to go.
1:19.3	And in the past, Scalise actually thought about briefly challenging McCarthy for GOP leader a few
1:25.9	years ago. Now, recently he has been on McCarthy's side
1:29.7	saying he wouldn't run against him for speaker, but a lot of people are looking to Scalise if
	...

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