Photo: AFP
“If at first you don’t succeed…”
Well, you probably know the rest of that adage. Unfortunately, the Republican party is taking “try, try again” to an absurd new level, as they have now tabbed Mike Johnson to go to a floor vote in the seemingly never-ending search for a new Speaker of the House. He is the fourth Congressman to be nominated to fill the post since Kevin Mcarthy’s ouster three weeks ago.
Connell McShane is the host of “News Nation Now with Connell McShane,” and he appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to discuss whether the GOP can maybe, finally, possibly select and fully endorse a candidate for speaker. His analysis- hopefully so, but probably not.
“The Republican party, and this was proven yesterday, has a serious problem with more than just Donald Trump,” McShane observed with Berman and Riedel. “Mike Johnson is one of [the] 139 members of the House who voted to overturn the election, and it’s clear now that’s a litmus test for Donald Trump if you want to be the speaker, because he killed Tom Emmer’s candidacy yesterday with that social media post… so the question now for Johnson is, are there a few Republicans left in the caucus… who just won’t vote for somebody who was on that side of it... It’s gonna be close, but if I had to bet, I would say, just given on history, that no, he doesn’t have the votes.”
McShane, who was a correspondent on the Fox Business Channel, also offered cautious optimism on whether the American economy is in good shape. “There are actually a lot of reasons to be relatively positive on how the economy has hung in there this year… but I think by far, the biggest concern is what we’re seeing with interest rates. That affects real people, how they buy cars and homes… so as long as rates remain at this elevated level, I think the risk of the economy going into something that either is or feels like a recession is still real and still out there.”
Photo Credit: Getty Images