Opinion

GOP Hits the Bottom of the Barrel to Dredge Up New Speaker

THE NEW ABNORMAL

On this week’s episode of The New Abnormal Republicans are scrambling to figure out who they could dredge up as Kevin McCarthy’s replacement. It’s not looking good.

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A red elephant holds a gavel with an American flag.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

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​​With the antics in Washington this week, it’s fairly clear that we could quite possibly end up with a House Speaker who’s worse than Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

That’s according to The New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy, who says the choice of who will next take up the gavel will simply be a decision between several different extremists.

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“I’m not even one of those people who thinks extremists is automatically a bad word. Like, you can be extremely in favor of good things. This ain’t them,” Levy explains.

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With the ability to choose from more than 200 people, the party showed its true colors after landing this week on Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)–who denies claims that he ignored allegations of sexual abuse while a wrestling coach for Ohio State–and Rep Steve Scalise (R-LA), who reportedly referred to himself as “David Duke without the baggage.”

Scalise dropped out of the race Thursday night, but either way, according to co-host Danielle Moodie, “the Republican Party has told the American people who they are and what they stand for.”

Plus! Yvette Clark, who represents the 9th Congressional District in New York, adds her thoughts on the House Speaker drama, saying Republicans are “having difficulty holding onto a speaker because they’ve got a civil war going on … It’s all about who’s going to be the most cruel.”

Then, Dr. Dannagal Young, an associate professor of communications and political science at the University of Delaware, talks about her new book, Wrong: How Media, Politics and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation, and the “three Cs” behind the social nature of human knowledge.

Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

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