Reportedly, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) turned down a request to join the Gop this past weekend coming from allies of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
The allies of McCarthy attempted to recruit the more moderate Democrat throughout a series of weekend phone calls, explained a group of five people known to be familiar with the attempt to The Wall Street Journal. McCarthy could end up being the next speaker of the House if Republicans can manage to lock in at least 218 seats throughout the chamber and if he possibly gets ahead in a potential bid for his leadership position.
The results of well over a dozen various races within the House are still entirely unknown. The GOP is most favored to take a slight majority with roughly 219 seats, as reported by Decision Desk from NBC News.
Cuellar is a fairly moderate Democrat from a district located within southern Texas that sits just along the border between U.S. and Mexico. Cuellar area has been severely impacted by the flood of illegal aliens over the past few years, and the congressman from Texas has been one of the most boisterously vocal critics of Old Uncle Joe from the Democratic Party. Cuellar has taken part in numerous appearances on Fox News to Criticize Biden’s border policies.
One spokesman for McCarthy explained to the WSJ that the top Republican did not ask for the calls.
“Anyone suggesting this is simply exercising in fan fiction,” explained Mark Bednar, a spokesman for McCarthy. “Leader McCarthy is going to be elected speaker by the current and newly-elected members of the House Republican Conference. Our efforts are exclusively focused on bringing our conference together and saving the country.”
The final results of the recent 2022 midterms, while quite underwhelming to a large number of Republicans, have pushed quite a few within the House GOP caucus to worry about the leadership of McCarthy while they head into the newly voted-in Congress. The leader of the GOP is dealing with a large challenge from his right from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.
McCarthy led a prominent closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference this past Monday. One member of the House Freedom Caucus, Virginia Rep. Bob Good, reportedly exclaimed to McCarthy that the Republicans “got rolled” throughout the midterms, as reported by The Daily Caller. Reportedly, the meeting prominently featured quite a bit of muted frustration from McCarthy as no one in attendance spoke out in any sort of direct challenge to McCarthy for the potential seat of the speaker.
