McCarthy Sends Buddies To Win Over Holdouts

January 5, 2023

Republican House speaker hopeful Kevin McCarthy is calling in backup.

If he can't convince the 20 conservative holdouts to make him speaker of the House, then maybe his friends can.

That's why McCarthy sent a group of Republicans to cut a deal with the 20 conservatives still holding out against him taking the gavel.

The group of buddies included Reps. Patrick McHenry from North Carolina, French Hill from Arkansas, Garret Graves of Louisiana, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania.

McCarthy's army negotiated with the holdouts for about two hours, but no deal was able to be reached.

McHenry was given orders from McCarthy to find out what the holdouts needed before they could get on board and to please relay that information to the rest of the Republican Party.

Around 10% of House Republicans have been opposing McCarthy, who keeps falling 16 votes short of the threshold to become speaker of the House of Representatives.