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Kevin McCarthy's dream of a comeback in the House is all but over.
House Republicans gathered Wednesday morning to select a nominee for speaker after the California congressman was voted out of the role last week. Within a few hours, the caucus nominated Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana for the speakership. Scalise edged out Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio in a 113-99 vote — a far cry from the Republican support likely needed to win in a full House vote.
And amid uncertainty over who can garner enough votes to win, McCarthy spent the days ahead of Wednesday’s meeting embarking on a press tour of sorts, in which he's seemingly floated the possibility of becoming speaker again. He's also used it to insult (rather pitifully, I might add) Matt Gaetz, the House Republican who led the effort to oust him.
But by Wednesday morning, McCarthy had apparently given up hope. The beleaguered Republican told members of his caucus not to nominate him, NBC News reported. And they apparently listened.
Was this because he stood virtually no chance of winning? That’s what Gaetz said in an interview Tuesday.
“I probably am off former Speaker McCarthy’s Christmas card list, but I wouldn’t count on a political comeback,” Gaetz said during an interview on the far-right outlet Newsmax. “The same math problem that resulted in Kevin McCarthy losing a procedural vote and then losing his speakership persist on the floor today.”
To be clear, the “math problem” Gaetz is referring to involves the eight House Republican hard-liners who sided with Democrats in voting to oust McCarthy.
"This is not a time to move backward," Gaetz told Newsmax. "We want to move forward.”
It always seemed foolish to believe McCarthy could rise from the ashes after his history-making ouster. But some of his loyalists have helped fuel the fantasy of his return to power.
Gaetz burst that bubble Tuesday, effectively moonwalking on the former speaker’s political career, and Wednesday's nomination vote seems to have essentially sealed McCarthy's fate.