WASHINGTON – Ambitious Kevin McCarthy, who struggled to lead a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, swayed his party’s lawmakers by directly opposing Joe Biden, for whom he would cap debt increases of the United States in exchange for demanding cuts in public spending. And avoid default.
From his position as “speaker” or chairman of the opposition caucus in the lower house, a position that is actually a party leadership in the Legislature, he forced the Democratic president to negotiate, with a strategy that paid off handsomely. Has prestige. risk. from the United States.
How far will he go in this fight that puts him at the center of the political game? Will he give in to avoid the debt crunch at the risk of frustrating Trump-friendly lawmakers, who may then try to oust him?
Target
The motives of this 58-year-old man are mysterious. But for now, he appears to have unified Republican lawmakers from both houses of Congress who support his crusade.
McCarthy weakened after being elected Speaker of the House in January.
The head of Republicans in Congress since 2014, he clashed with about twenty pro-Trump legislators, who reprimanded him for being too timid, lacking support for the former president, and even lacking conviction. put. Thus, he had to court them for four days and make important concessions, after 15 votes to decide the position.
It was not the first time that this practical man had taken a bitter drink.
From a classic Republican position based on defending the market and individual success, Kevin McCarthy championed his party’s turnaround on immigration, crime and transgender rights.
Faced with allegations of election fraud without evidence and an attack on the Capitol by Donald Trump, he was more ambivalent.
A supporter of the Republican millionaire in the 2015 primaries, McCarthy initially supported his arguments against the 2020 election result, but was shaken by the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, announcing that Trump’s “punishment for that violent act would responsibility”.
A week later she was photographed smiling with the former president at his Florida residence in Mar-a-Lago.
Biography
Born in 1965 in Bakersfield, a Republican stronghold in the heart of the Democratic state of California, McCarthy is the son of a Democratic firefighter and homemaker.
On his website, he highlights his folk origins and vows to “champion the American dream for those who work hard”. He tells how he opened a small business selling sandwiches at the age of 21 and discovered red tape.
He then resumed his university studies, becoming a parliamentary assistant and then a local legislator, until he entered the lower house in 2006.
His network of contacts made him known for his mastery of fundraising.
An auction held Tuesday to benefit the Republican Party confirmed her newfound popularity: Controversial lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene spent $100,000 on lip balm used by “Kevin…
