Republican Kevin McCarthy has also lost the fourth vote to appoint him as Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Before the vote, US President Joe Biden has called the disarray within Republicans in Congress “embarrassing”.
In yesterday’s first and second ballots, McCarthy only managed to gather 203 of the 218 votes he needed to be elected. In the third round he had lost another vote to fellow party member Jim Jordan.
As the leader of the newly elected Republican majority in the House of Representatives, McCarthy almost wrote himself for the role. But he faced resistance within his own ranks — from some members loyal to former President Donald Trump, who think McCarthy is neither conservative nor tough enough to fight Democrats.
It was the first time in a hundred years that the House of Representatives voted more than once to produce a new Speaker without success.
In the clip, TV4 Nyheterna’s Lisa Grenfors analyzes the situation.