Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said Friday morning that when Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced he would drop out of the race to be the next House speaker, the news hit Republicans in a slow, rolling wave because the microphones weren’t even working in the room.
Republicans gathered Thursday morning for what they thought would be a vote to find a speaker nominee. But it lasted just a few minutes after McCarthy made his hard-to-hear surprise.
“When Kevin McCarthy made the announcement that he would withdraw his name as a candidate for speaker, the speakers themselves, the mike system that we had in the room, were not functioning very well at all,” King said on C-SPAN.
“Some of the people in the front of the room heard what he said, and a good number of the people in the back of the room knew something dramatic had happened,” he added. “But they were hollering, ‘What did you say?! We couldn’t hear.'”
“So, as it rumbled through the room, members kind of whispering or saying to each other what was happening, while that happened, then John Boehner stepped up to the microphone and made a motion to adjourn,” he said. “I heard a second, the gavel came down.”
“That was the quickest conference I ever remember,” he said.
King said the sudden announcement and decision to end the meeting stopped what he thought was going to be a secret ballot among Republicans to vote for their new speaker. McCarthy’s decision has forced the GOP to scramble for a new plan, which will likely be developed more next week, when the House is on recess.
