Donald Trump on Truth Social:

Said Trump: “There is so much unnecessary turmoil in the Republican Party, in large part do to people like the Old Broken Crow, Mitch McConnell, his ‘wife’, Coco Chow, who is a sellout to China, and their RINO allies, who make it difficult for everyone else by constantly capitulating to Hopeless Joe Biden and the Democrats.”

Tara Palmeri: “One of the cruel ironies of all this is that McCarthy, who went to extraordinary lengths to placate Trump, is being stymied by card-carrying members of his MAGA movement. And where is Trump in McCarthy’s hour of need?”

“Actually, I’m told from sources close to him that he’s been burning up the phone for McCarthy, but his pleas don’t seem to be making any impact. Even Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz hasn’t been moved. Instead, I’m told, the recipients of Trump’s calls have rebutted his request to support Kevin with relentless flirtation and flattery, Trump’s ultimate love language, such as suggesting that he should be speaker. Naturally, this deactivated and neutralized the ‘24 presidential candidate.”

“House Republicans began their new majority rule on Tuesday with a chaotic and historic debacle, an embarrassing failure to rally around a leader that showcased the difficulties they will face in performing even the basics of governing and their lack of a unifying agenda,” the New York Times reports.

“Handed narrow control of the House by voters in November, Republicans squandered the opening hours of the new Congress they could have used to dispel concerns about their capabilities. Instead, they feuded in a disorderly display over who among them should be speaker as the most extreme elements of the new majority repeatedly rejected Representative Kevin McCarthy of California.”

Washington Post: “McCarthy’s inability to clinch the necessary 218 votes to become speaker in one day — something that hasn’t happened since 1923 — has led members into uncertain territory and undermined Republicans’ goal to govern now that they have the majority. As a result, the GOP’s intraparty fighting only grew more fervent and transparent as the day went on, with many no longer holding back insults toward the detractors.”

John Harris: “By any historical standard, however, vivid evidence that one chamber of the national legislature is essentially ungovernable is a high-water moment. Kevin McCarthy, whatever the outcome of this contest in coming hours or days, can rest assured he has earned a legacy — as a symbol of pathos and ineffectuality, an emblem of the cannibalistic spirit of the age.”

“That age, McCarthy’s travails make clear, is not defined exclusively by former President Donald Trump. Recall that the first time McCarthy vied for the speakership — eight years ago, before dropping out in the face of right-wing opposition — occurred before Trump entered the presidential race and made himself the most important figure in the Republican Party. This time around, McCarthy is stumbling even as he holds Trump’s endorsement.”

Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) posted a press release on official House website citing that he took the oath of office and being sworn in today.

No members were sworn in today.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) lodged a complaint that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is improperly occupying the Speaker’s offices in the Capitol.

“House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s political operation has steered more than $300,000 over the years to the bloc of Republicans who spurned his speaker bid Tuesday,” Axios reports.

“McCarthy’s leadership PAC, dubbed the Majority Committee, has donated to the campaigns of 17 of the 20 members who voted against him in the first three speaker ballots on Tuesday.”

“Twelve of those members got cash from McCarthy’s political operation during the 2022 cycle.”

“Staff throughout the West Wing wouldn’t cop to watching live coverage of Rep. Kevin McCarthy failing to get enough votes to become speaker of the House,” Politico reports.

“But make no mistake: this administration is about as distraught over all this as a flock of vultures happening upon a freshly killed gazelle. For whatever headaches a Republican-controlled House will create for President Joe Biden through investigations and its ability to control the floor, the disorder and rancor likely to characterize the new GOP majority, administration aides believe, will benefit the president politically.”

Donald Trump, who’d endorsed Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s bid for House speaker, declined to say Tuesday whether he still supports his longtime ally after he failed to clinch the job in three separate votes, NBC News reports.

Said Trump: “We’ll see what happens.”

He added: “I got everybody calling me wanting my support. But let’s see what happens and we’ll go — I got everybody calling, wanting my support. That’s all I can say. But we’ll see what happens. We’ll see how it all works out.”

David Graham: Kevin McCarthy’s loyalty to Trump got him nothing.

The House of Representatives voted to adjourn until 12 p.m. tomorrow after three rounds of voting failed to elect a new Speaker.

No members have been sworn in yet and can’t be until a Speaker is elected.

Ballots will continue until someone gets a majority of votes — but it’s not clear how long that might take.

In conversations with Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on the House floor, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was told that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told members of his caucus that Democrats would walk away from the chamber to lower the threshold McCarthy would need to be elected speaker, ABC News reports.

But Ocasio-Cortez told them: “We would never do that.”

“Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries may not emerge with the speakership as Republicans remain divided on who they’ll elect to lead the House of Representatives, but he’s done something that hasn’t been done in more than a decade,” NBC News reports.

“When the New York congressman secured 212 votes for speaker Tuesday afternoon, it was the first time since 2007 that a Democratic leader has won support from every single member of their caucus.”

Tim Miller: “For years Kevin McCarthy, a blow-dried, donor-class Republican, has tried to maintain a hold on his increasingly bedraggled, QAnon-class conference by prostrating himself before Donald Trump—in increasingly ostentatious ways, so as to prove to his flock that he was an authentic convert to the One True Church of MAGA.”

“McCarthy calculated that this public self-abasement would be worth it because he would be rewarded in the end with the gavel and bust he had long coveted.”

“This afternoon he was rewarded instead with the type of humiliation we have not seen on the House floor in a century: Being forced to smirk through repeated public beatings at the hands of his own members.”