After Trump’s pick for speaker narrowly won, what sway will the former president hold over Congress’s Republican majority?
Like an exhausted marathon runner, Kevin McCarthy had just about staggered across the finish line. But even at 2.11am, with tempers frayed and eyes bleary, the newly elected speaker of the US House of Representatives wanted to single out one person for praise.
“I do want to especially thank President Trump,” McCarthy told reporters after prevailing in the longest election for speaker since before the civil war. “I don’t think anyone should doubt his influence. He was with me from the beginning.”
The gushing tribute obscured the complexity of Donald Trump’s intervention in the election for speaker – and what sway he might hold over the narrow Republican majority in the new Congress.
The week that followed brought a series of extremist actions and appointments that appear designed to resonate with his rightwing base. But whether House Republicans’ agenda will ultimately complement or conflict with Trump’s 2024 presidential election campaign remains uncertain.
McCarthy’s election as speaker took four gruelling days, 15 roll call votes and concessions that he might come to regret. Trump’s endorsement appeared impotent for much of that time, even among some of the former president’s champions in Congress. As he made calls in the dying hours of Friday night, a memorable photo showed Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene attempting to give her phone, with “DT” on the line, to colleague Matt Rosendale, only for him to wave it away.
But in the end, Trump’s man won – a sign that he remains important if not decisive. McCarthy duly felt obliged to heap praise on the kingmaker. He also made a somewhat optimistic claim: “This is the great part: because it took this long, now we learned how to govern.”
That was immediately put to the test. On Monday evening, Republicans passed legislation to cut funding that was intended to bolster the Internal Revenue Service on a party-line vote. The speaker proclaimed: “Promises made. Promises kept.” Democrats called it a deficit-raising windfall for wealthy tax cheats at the expense of the majority that has no chance of passing in a Senate they still control.
On Tuesday, Republicans formed a panel to tackle what they perceive as rampant abuse of power in the federal government, not least by law enforcement agencies investigating Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and handling and storing of presidential records at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
The subcommittee focusing on “the weaponization of the federal government” falls under the judiciary committee, headed by Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who has repeatedly said Trump should become president again. It will have access to classified information, a privilege usually reserved for the intelligence committees in the House and Senate.
