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

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

Congressman Richard Hudson, of North Carolina, grabbed Mr Rogers from behind around his face and shoulder and pulled the irate Alabama Congressman away.

Representative-elect Marjorie Taylor Green boasted of “the perfect phone call” from former president Donald Trump shortly before Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker of the US House of Representatives early on Saturday.

The GOP member elected from Georgia shared a picture of herself holding out her smartphone to colleague Matt Rosendale, with “DT” flashing on the screen, likely referring to the former president.

He could be seen holding his hand out and waving it away, as Ms Greene attempts to hand the phone over to him.

Just after midnight on Saturday, Kevin McCarthy was finally elected speaker of the House by his Republican colleagues, after an astounding 14 previous unsuccessful rounds of voting. The incident not only put a spotlight on the division and dysfunction within the GOP.

It also, after numerous, drawn-out, dramatic votes, highlighted how rare it is for the public to actually watch the work of Congress live, inspiring calls to give C-SPAN more control over its cameras inside the House.

As the House struggled to get its normal business underway, cameras from C-SPAN, the nonprofit public affairs network backed by large cable companies, caught all kinds of notable scenes.

“Republican Kevin McCarthy is the new House speaker, but as bruising as it was for him to seize the gavel in a history-making election, it may be even more difficult for the embattled leader to do much with the powerful position — or to even keep it,” writes Lisa Mascaro for The Associated Press.

“Like the two most recent Republican speakers, John Boehner and Paul Ryan, McCarthy takes the helm of a restive, rebellious majority split in much the way as the party itself, between what’s left of the Grand Old Party conservatives and a new generation of tea party-to-Donald Trump hard-liners preferring almost no big government at all.”

House Republican Kevin McCarthy’s numerous concessions to the most right-wing members of his conference risk setting the House of Representatives and Congress up for a series of crises over the next two years.

At the top of the list is the US debt ceiling, which far-right lawmakers may hold hostage to extract policy concessions and spending cuts, while endangering the full faith and credit of the US and global economy.

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:

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.

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

Matt Gaetz said he finally agreed to vote “present” after Kevin McCarthy agreed to all of his demands.

“I ran out of things I could even imagine to ask for,” Mr Gaetz told CNN reporter Melanie Zanona after Friday night’s dramatic vote.

After previously vowing to never vote for Mr McCarthy, Mr Gaetz was one of six holdout Republicans who changed their vote to present on Friday night.

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

Congressman Richard Hudson, of North Carolina, grabbed Mr Rogers from behind around his face and shoulder and pulled the irate Alabama Congressman away.