Kellyanne Conway, a former adviser to former President Donald Trump, questioned Thursday whether Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy had “the votes to govern.”
McCarthy failed to secure the 218 votes necessary to become speaker in multiple votes since Tuesday, with the eighthballot still showing 21 Republicans not voting for him. Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York received 212 votes for speaker.
“When Newt Gingrich was the speaker, I had been involved as a bit player in the mezzanine and the Contract for America. He was speaker,” Conway said via phone to “America Reports.” “That first election after he became speaker, they lost five or six seats. He still had control, he still had plus 19, more than McCarthy has, and yet he did not run for speaker again, he resigned.”
WATCH:
McCarthy offered new concessions to the holdouts, including agreeing to allow a single member of the House of Representatives to offer a “motion to vacate,” which would remove the Speaker, as well as other proposals involving House rules, committee assignments and floor votes on legislation.
“Ken Duberstein, God rest his soul, was one of his confidantes and he had said at the time, ‘I know Newt has the votes to become speaker. I don’t know if he has the votes to govern,’” Conway said. “I think both those questions are on the table right now for McCarthy and others.”
Gingrich resigned as speaker after the 1998 election, when Republicans lost seats in the House in the wake of a scandal involving former President Bill Clinton’s relationship with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
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