Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) believes Republicans might choose former President Donald Trump for Speaker of the House, the Conservative Brief reported. Raskin said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the current favorite for the job, will have to persuade Trump loyalists away from the former president.
Raskin was on "Face the Nation" Sunday when he brought up the prospect to host Margaret Brennan. "Well, it's a real problem for Kevin McCarthy now because there are certain pro-Trumpists within his House caucus who refuse to accept that he's really with Trump, and they want to get rid of McCarthy," the lawmaker said.
"And some of them, they have names very early in the alphabet, like Biggs. And they might just vote for Trump when they, you know, take the roll call for speaker," Raskin proposed.
"So we know that the — the hard-right Freedom Caucus people are in search of another candidate," Raskin went on. "And one potential candidate whose name has been floated is Donald Trump himself because the speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House. And they are talking about putting Trump right there," he pointed out.
Brennan dismissed the idea out of hand as something that isn't a "real option" at this time. "Well, they talk about it repeatedly," Raskin replied.
"And if Trump decided he wanted to do it, it would pose a profound problem for their party because they refused to do the right thing early on," he said about taking the former president out of the GOP mix. "I mean, today, it seems like the spell has been broken," Raskin added.
"It's begun to dissolve. We don't have Republicans around the country claiming that they really won when it's been certified that they lost their elections," Raskin said.
"And yet there is still this big lie dogma, which, as you say, has been embraced by 150 members within their caucus. And so that is going to create profound cognitive and political dissonance within the GOP," Raskin predicted.
"Is it really Trump's party? Or does it stand for something else?" the lawmaker questioned.
McCarthy is already having a tough time unifying the party because the House Freedom Caucus is making demands. For this reason, Rep. Ruben Gallego (R-AZ) goaded McCarthy to pull some Democrats onto his side.
"Just cut a deal with the Dems, Kevin. Whatever you get from Freedom Caucus will not be worth it. The odds will be good but the goods will be odd," Gallego said.
Republicans voting Trump in as House Speaker is an exciting prospect. However, it's unlikely to happen as Trump's profile seems to be on the downswing due to the sweeping GOP victories that never materialized in the midterms.