Far-right Republicans claimed victory in ousting Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House of Representatives. “It’s the benefit of this country that we have a better speaker of the House than Kevin McCarthy,” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who led the effort to topple McCarthy, told reporters after the vote. “We should elect a speaker who’s better.”
But a policy expert at Northeastern University said the Republican Party as a whole — and particularly its leader and likely presidential nominee, former President Donald J. Trump — may have just shot themselves in the foot.
“This is not likely to help the Republican Party with the national perception that the party is dysfunctional and chaotic,” said Costas Panagopoulos, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University. “And it’s not going to help Donald Trump, who is perceived by many people to be the main source of political chaos at the moment.”
