McCarthy and Congress held hostage by Trump and the radicals

“DT”.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the congresswomen closest to Donald Trump, desperately held out her phone to one of the rebel Republicans after the 14th defeat of Kevin McCarthy in the vote to be elected speaker of the House of Representatives.

The one on the other end of the line, as those initials on the screen revealed, was the former president.

According to McCarthy, his calls were decisive.

The Republican leader was eventually elected

but after paying a high price in the form of concessions to the more radical wing of his party.

He has achieved the position, but after paying homage to Trump and joining the ultras, of which he remains hostage.

And with McCarthy, the Republican Party, Congress and US governance are held hostage.

The election ended a week of political drama in Washington unprecedented for a century, but it begins a two-year legislature that promises to be stormy and dysfunctional due to the power displayed by extremists.

The twenty or so radicals prefer to play against and engage in agitation and propaganda rather than take action or pass laws.

The new Republican leader was chosen in a session that began on the day of the second anniversary of the assault on the Capitol.

As denounced by the Democratic congressman Pete Aguilar in the plenary session, they assume command "the same individuals who fanned the flames of January 6, who told their followers and the followers of their followers that they needed to fight back and who challenged the oath of the members based on in a false claim” about the presidential election in which Biden defeated Trump.

The rebels have made a show of force and have wrested from McCarthy some privileged positions and regulatory modifications on the functioning of the House, but also fundamental concessions, especially in terms of debt and public spending, which could condition the second half of the tenure of President Joe Biden.

The Republicans will also try to turn the House into hell for Biden with investigations and appearances on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the control of migration on the border with Mexico and what they consider a partisan use of the Department of Justice, in reference to the cases that dot Trump.

Congress is already divided.

Democrats control the Senate and Republicans have a majority in the House of Representatives.

In order to approve any law or authorization of public spending, the competition of Democrats and Republicans will be necessary, which was already predicted to be complicated.

But, in addition, once the hard wing of the Republican Party has shown its power in the House of Representatives, Biden's room for maneuver has narrowed even more and it is in doubt that even essential laws to finance the operation of the Administration, although the president faces the situation with a recently approved spending package of 1.7 trillion.

Public spending

In addition to Trumpists, many of the wayward people, grouped in the Freedom Caucus (Freedom Group), are heirs to the Tea Party and its draconian positions on public spending, which even threaten the continuity of military support for Ukraine.

The United States can continue to function as normal if new gun laws, abortion laws, or climate change laws are not passed, but if budget lines are not passed or the debt ceiling is raised, the result could be a worldwide economic crisis. rule.

In the United States, Congress sets the limit of outstanding public debt that the federal government can issue and when it approaches that level, it is necessary to increase it to avoid the unthinkable, that the country enters into suspension of payments.

Economists calculate that the current limit can be reached in the second half of this year.

One of the most prominent rebels, Texan Chip Roy, has suggested that his faction has wrung a commitment from McCarthy to link raising the debt ceiling to imposing spending cuts on the Biden government.

The renewal of agricultural subsidies is also coming, which is normally done every five years.

Although in principle it is a program that benefits rural districts with a Republican majority, the radicals can once again exact a price for approving them.

Added to this are other concessions initially accepted by the candidate for the approval of public spending: that every time a new item is approved, cuts must be made elsewhere.

And other measures so that, in the event that a situation of

suppression of federal services due to lack of financing, more cuts are necessary to unblock it.

The United States has never in its history defaulted on its debt commitments and the precedents for government shutdowns suggest that they turn against those who cause them.

But given the propensity for extremists to push their demands to the extreme, it is a risk that cannot be ruled out.

It is, again, a kind of blackmail, of the same type that McCarthy has been subjected to grant him the presidency of the House, and it can once again bring dramatic and chaotic scenes to the floor like the ones that have been seen this week.

Those scenes have been broadcast live like never before on the C-SPAN channel, which supplies the signal from Congress.

The

sets the rules for the broadcasts, which are normally limited to shots of those who have the use of the floor and general shots of the Chamber.

However, with the power vacuum due to the lack of a president, C-SPAN cameramen and filmmakers have been free to offer the comings and goings of the congressmen, their discussions and even a scene in which Mike Rogers, McCarthy ally , was held by another Republican colleague when he seemed ready to come to blows with Matt Gaetz, who denied the candidate the deciding vote on the 14th ballot.

It was the most tense moment.

Gaetz, the greatest exponent of the Never Kevin group (Never Kevin), had not answered the first call and his vote was decisive.

He said “present”, the equivalent of an abstention.

McCarthy, who needed a

got up upset and approached Gaetz's seat with a scowl to try to convince him to change his vote, since he was on time.

The other Republicans also pressured him, but there was no way.

McCarthy returned to his dejected seat.

The Republicans asked to postpone the session until Monday, but while that proposal was being voted on, the phones began to smoke.

Donald Trump had mobilized.

The wayward people told McCarthy that if the vote was repeated he would be elected.

That's how it went.

As he left the Capitol, McCarthy "especially" thanked Trump.

This corresponded to him on Saturday from his social network: "It has been a great honor."

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