House speaker vote: McCarthy thanks Trump for final votes as fight nearly breaks out on floor

Because of course, who better to join the House of Representatives than someone who participated in an attack on it?

C-SPAN has been lauded for providing an unfiltered, transparent live feed of all the action on the floor of the House of Representatives as Republicans finally chose Kevin McCarthy as the House speaker after 15 rounds of vote.

Audiences have been treated to a fascinating insight into how Congress functions – or dysfunctions, as the case may be.

There have been hours of footage of huddling lawmakers, animated negotiations, and unexpected pairings of people with well-known quarrels.

Usually, congressional rules dictate what cameras can and cannot show in the Capitol, but with no representatives sworn in there are no such rules, leaving C-SPAN camera operators seemingly free to capture all the frustrations, laughter, and intensity of four days of voting.

Needless to say the C-SPAN team — and the still photographers present — have won the praise of political junkies across the nation for putting us all ringside.

Howard Mortman, the network’s communications director, shared some pictures of a few members of the team that brought those images to the world.

Others offered their own praise.

C-SPAN’s co-CEO Susan Swain noted that while their coverage is getting kudos, the non-profit network “doesn’t get a dime” of government funding.

“Sadly, we’re not available to all pay TV customers, importantly YouTube and Hulu,” she tweeted, adding the request: “Please help convince them to add C-SPAN to their lineups by liking and retweeting.”

If there was an unexpected breakout star in the House this week, it wasn’t a grandstanding elected representative, it was a diligent official doing her job and rightly winning praise for keeping proceedings on track.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has told The Independent that Republicans’ chaotic efforts to elect a speaker for the new Congress serve to highlight how grounded and reasonable she and other members of the so-called ‘Squad’ of progressive Democrats have been.

Read more on what she had to say:

Kevin McCarthy was finally elected as House speaker amid chaotic scenes, with the 15th and final vote stretching past midnight on Friday.

The Independent’s Eric Garcia and Alex Woodward have the story.

New House speaker Kevin McCarthy credited the former president’s 11th hour lobbying with helping him secure the gavel in a speech delivered in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Namita Singh has more.

MSNBC political commentator Elie Mystal said Kevin McCarthy would let the House burn if he could become “king of the ashes”.

Speaking on Chris Hayes’ show on Friday night, Mr Mystal compared the GOP House leader to the treacherous Game of Thrones character Littlefinger.

“Littlefinger McCarthy has showed that he was willing to let Congress burn to be king of the ashes,” he stated.

“And now we have for the next two years are those ashes that we have to sift through and see if we can find any functioning government amongst the ruin that McCarthy has wrecked with his own, sweaty, desperate ambition.”

Trump phone-ins, near-fights and 15 votes, here are the key moments from a chaotic House speaker election.

Kevin McCarthy celebrated his belated election as House speaker in the early hours of Saturday morning with champagne.

Politico reporter Olivia Beavers snapped video of dozens of bottles of Gloria Ferrer bubbly being wheeled into the speaker’s office.

Earlier in the week, boxes of Washington DC favourite Wiseguy Pizza were seen being brought in as negotiations continued late into the night.

A near-brawl broke out between Republicans on the House floor late on Friday night as four days of frustration at Matt Gaetz’s refusal to back Kevin McCarthy’s teetering bid for Speaker boiled over.

Republican House member Mike Rogers had to be physically restrained after lunging at Mr Gaetz amid chaotic scenes on Capitol Hill.

Full story below.