That time Trump decided to run for Speaker of the House

Created
Sat, 07/10/2023 - 09:30
Updated
Sat, 07/10/2023 - 09:30
When he was mocked on the cable networks for getting the lowest vote count in history, he pulled the plug. ABC’s Jonathan Karl writes: In reporting for my upcoming book, “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party,” I learned that Trump had secretly plotted to be elected speaker back in January, when he was publicly supporting Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who was struggling to get the votes he needed. The idea of Donald Trump serving as speaker was first proposed on the day he left the White House — Jan. 20, 2021 — by a pro-Trump activist named Rogan O’Handley, who went by the name “@DC_Draino” on social media. The idea was soon aggressively pushed by Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist in the White House. At first Trump had no interest in the job, but that all changed as he watched McCarthy fail in vote after vote on the House floor in early January of this year. The prime-time drama surrounding the seemingly endless voting for House speaker in January caught the attention of the former president, who was soaking up every minute of coverage from his perch in Mar‑a‑Lago. The must-see television spectacle briefly revived an idea Trump had dismissed long ago: that he could become speaker of the House, the only congressional leadership post you can be elected to even if you are not a member of Congress. “He saw the power of television,” a close Trump adviser told me. “[He saw] how galvanizing…