As I write this post, the House just adjourned after three votes failed to yield a speaker. Karl Rove declared his disgust on Fox News as the second vote was being tallied.
As Mediaite detailed, Rove ran through a litany of Freedom Caucus demands that Speaker-wannabe Kevin McCarthy caved to only to find the goalposts moved to new, extremist demands that no House speaker has the power to grant. For example, they demanded the power to choose members of the Judiciary Committee which will investigate the “weaponization” of the DOJ and FBI. According to Rove, only the committee on committees has that power.
Rove also dropped an interesting little nugget that neither of the Fox anchors followed up on: that the Freedom Caucus wants Rep. Scott Perry, not McCarthy ally Jim Jordan, to chair the Judiciary Committee (and choose its members). Are Perry, et al. opposed to Jordan’s chairmanship only because he’s allied with McCarthy or do they think he’s not MAGA enough? It wasn’t clear.
Rove went on to argue that if the Freedom Caucus were to have its demands met, other groups of House Republicans would start in with their own over-the-top demands.
ROVE: This is an utter, unmitigated disaster. Chaos tends to bring about chaos until it no longer brings about chaos. We’re a long way from the point at which chaos stops bringing around more chaos.
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving group!
