Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

‘Nobody Trusts Kevin McCarthy’: Former GOP Rep Predicts McCarthy Will Resign From House Within A Year

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A guest on MSNBC predicted Tuesday that Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California would resign from Congress within a year after he failed to be named speaker after three ballots.

“I personally think he’s done, I don’t think there’s a path for Kevin. He may have one last shot behind closed doors, but I think his run of the speakership is probably done, and I would be surprised, Nicolle, if Kevin McCarthy is in the House of Representatives a year from now,” former Republican Rep. David Jolly of Florida told host Nicolle Wallace. “I think he resigns.”

McCarthy failed to generate the 218 votes necessary to become speaker of the House in multiple ballots Tuesday, receiving only 203 votes in the first two ballots. Republican Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Byron Donalds of Florida and Jim Banks of Indiana split 18 additional votes, while former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York received one vote in the first ballot, while Jordan received all 19 votes from Republican opponents of McCarthy in the second ballot.

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McCarthy offered multiple concessions to the House Freedom Caucus, including agreeing to multiple rule changes proposed by the group, in a bid to secure the necessary votes to become speaker, but failed to convince the holdouts. Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska called for some Republicans to work with Democrats to elect a unity speaker in Tuesday op-ed for the Daily Caller News Foundation, should McCarthy’s bid fail.

“Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. One of the reasons I got ostracized from the party, nobody trusted me, for very different reasons. I was willing, in my view of the world, to call out the truth and the caucus,” Jolly said.

“Kevin McCarthy can’t be trusted because he will say one thing to one person and another to another,” Jolly continued. “Understand what’s in the balance here, there are chairmanships, where he has promised multiple things to multiple people and he can’t be trusted.”

Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow that he switched his vote from McCarthy to Jordan in the third ballot Tuesday afternoon, during which Jordan ended up with 20 votes to McCarthy’s 202 and 212 for Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York.