Republicans elect new Congress speaker after weeks of infighting
Donald Trump's pick was able to unite the Republicans in Congress on Wednesday after weeks of infighting, ITV News US Correspondent Dan Rivers reports
Republicans eagerly elected a little-known figure to the speaker of the House of Congress on Wednesday ending three weeks of political chaos brought about by their own making.
Few would have guessed Mike Johnson would be elected to the third most powerful position in the United States after Kevin McCarthy was ousted.
But after three other more prominent men in the party failed to get enough backing to secure a majority in the House, Mr Johnson was successful.
He swept through the first ballot after the third contender Tom Emmer did not win enough support from his party in a vote hours earlier.
Mr Johnson is a lower-ranked member of the House Republican leadership team and is backed by and a backer of Donald Trump.
"I think he’s gonna be a fantastic speaker," Mr Trump said on Wednesday at the New York courthouse where the former president, who is now the Republican front-runner for president in 2024, is on trial over a lawsuit alleging business fraud.
Mr Trump said he hadn’t heard "one negative comment about him. Everybody likes him."
Far-right members had refused to accept a more traditional speaker, and moderate conservatives did not want a hard-liner.
Democrats again nominated their leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, criticising Mr Johnson as an architect of Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost to Joe Biden.
With Republicans controlling the House only 221-212 over Democrats, Johnson could afford just a few detractors to win the gavel. He won 220-209, with a few absences.
"Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system," Johnson said after winning the nomination. "We’re going to restore your trust in what we do here."
Matt Gaetz, who led a small band of hard-liners to engineer Mr McCarthy’s ouster at the start of the month, posted on social media: "Mike Johnson won’t be the Speaker the Swamp wants but, he is the Speaker America needs."
Anxious and exhausted after weeks of political infighting began wasting their majority, Republicans are already desperately trying to move on.
Work will need to start quickly as the federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a November 17 deadline to keep services and offices running.
More immediately, President Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion (£86bn) in aid - to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the US border with Mexico.
Many hard-liners have been resisting a leader who voted for the budget deal that McCarthy struck with Biden earlier this year, which set federal spending levels that far-right Republicans don’t agree with and now want to undo.
They are pursuing steeper cuts to federal programs and services with next month’s funding deadline.
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