As with all things Trump-related, however, this proved to be a slippery slope. Emboldened by being on the winning side of this issue, the GOP front-runner saw no downside to pushing the envelope.
Within a few months, he was targeting Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator who, despite her obvious whiteness, had claimed Native American identity in her rise through academia. Trump settled on a sobriquet for Warren, one that might have been mildly offensive to the right had it not elicited such disproportionate wrath from the left: “Pocahontas.”
PAUL RYAN WAS HOLED UP IN HIS OFFICE ON A CRISP THURSDAY MORNING in early October, tapping final revisions into a document on his computer, when the phone rang. It was the majority leader.
“Hey, just finishing up the speech,” Ryan told Kevin McCarthy. In a few hours, Republicans were expected to choose McCarthy, in an internal vote, to succeed Boehner as Speaker of the House. Ryan had volunteered to deliver remarks and formally place his friend’s name into nomination. “What’s up?”
Around that same time, Boehner pounded the gavel inside the mostly empty lower chamber, opening the House for business. Then he walked off the podium, through a swinging door, and into the Speaker’s lobby, a hallway decorated with monarchic portraits of his predecessors. Waiting for him, whispering furiously, were his chief of staff and McCarthy’s chief of staff. “Uh-oh,” Boehner responded. “He doesn’t have the votes?”
It was a surprise only in the sense that McCarthy was running unopposed. Yet no one could claim to be shocked at his sudden collapse: McCarthy was hardly an inspired choice for the most powerful position in Congress.
A gregarious Californian with an easy laugh and a perfectly coifed swatch of silver hair, he enjoyed strong personal bonds across the Republican Conference. And he was universally respected as an electoral sage with a mental Rolodex of districts, voting histories, and demographic trends. But serving as Speaker of the House requires more than relationships and political knowledge; the job demands intuition and temperance, unwaveringly sound judgment and coolness under fire. McCarthy’s possession of these attributes was shaky at best.
Just recently, he had boasted on Fox News that the House GOP’s probe into the Benghazi attacks had damaged Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects—after two years of Republicans denying any partisan motivation behind the committee’s work. It was precisely this sort of unmoored loudmouthery McCarthy’s associates worried about. And it wasn’t their only concern.
For several years, rumors had percolated inside the House about an extramarital adventure involving McCarthy and a colleague, Renee Ellmers of North Carolina.7 McCarthy denied the affair, as did Ellmers, though somewhat less vigorously. Their colleagues weren’t sure what to believe. “I never bought it. I thought she was nutty,” Boehner says. “She had this fixation on Kevin.”
But McCarthy’s biggest problem was the Freedom Caucus. After more than four years of living under the thumb of Boehner, conservatives weren’t going to robotically promote the next in line. To win their support, they told McCarthy, they would need concessions—ideally, a seat at the leadership table for one of their own.
This was an impossible ask. Jordan was loathed by much of the House GOP for his seek-and-destroy tactics; he would never receive the votes for majority leader or even majority whip. Meadows was despised for his treatment of Boehner. None of their Freedom Caucus comrades was well known or well liked enough to stand a chance, either.
Hoping for an unlikely assist, McCarthy placed a call to Ted Cruz, explaining his untenable position with House conservatives and wondering if the Tea Party favorite might weigh in on his behalf or at least not do something to derail his unsteady candidacy. Cruz vowed neutrality, nothing more or less. It was a window into the dizzying, upside-down world of GOP politics: The man poised to become Speaker of the House believed his fate could be determined by a freshman senator.
When McCarthy suggested a compromise to Jordan, offering to put forth Trey Gowdy, the popular South Carolinian who chaired the Benghazi committee, as his majority leader, the Freedom Caucus balked. If not a leadership position, Jordan told McCarthy, conservatives might settle for an infusion of their members onto the Steering Committee, an influential panel that appoints chairmen and hands down committee assignments. When McCarthy told him that he could not deliver on this, Jordan made it clear that a sufficient number of Freedom Caucus members would block his promotion to the speakership.
“It’s not going to happen, Paul,” McCarthy told his friend over the phone.
Ryan knew what was coming next. McCarthy made the case that Ryan should step up and become Speaker, arguing that he was the only Republican capable of uniting the conference, a sentiment echoed throughout his conversations with colleagues over the following week. Ryan was not interested in the job, and everyone knew it. He had insisted to Boehner and others, after Cantor’s loss in the summer of 2014, that he would “never” be Speaker. Now he was repeating himself to McCarthy.
Pacing briskly through Statuary Hall en route to his office suite, Boehner placed his first call to Jo-Marie St. Martin, his general counsel. Boehner was worried that if word leaked of McCarthy’s withdrawal, and if they knew how to manipulate the bylaws, conservatives could seize control of the meeting and nominate anyone they wished. Under Robert’s Rules of Order, the conference could be forced into an interminable number of voting rounds until someone emerged with a majority. “I was not gonna let that happen,” Boehner says.
The House GOP meeting began with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. Then, the conference chair, Cathy McMorris Rogers, recognized McCarthy, whom everyone in the room, save for Boehner and Ryan, was expecting to make his closing pitch for the job. Instead, McCarthy offered a tearful exit from the race.
Boehner immediately asked for recognition from the chair. “I move to adjourn,” he shouted, nodding to McMorris Rogers to bang the gavel. Before anyone knew what had hit them, the meeting was over. McCarthy was out, and Ryan was making a beeline out of the room and toward his office, avoiding the media throngs sure to descend on him after learning the news.
Boehner, lighting a cigarette as he returned to his office, was preparing to pull out the stops. McCarthy had been right about one thing: Ryan was the only House Republican who could unify the party. Now, Boehner felt, he had a responsibility to help Ryan see that.
For the next twelve days, Ryan’s phone did not stop ringing. First, it was Boehner, explaining the situation and impressing upon his old friend that he had no choice in the matter—the party needed him. Then it was Mitt Romney, his former running mate, saying much the same. Then it was Priebus, his longtime pal and fellow Wisconsinite. Then it was a chorus of senators, lobbyists, donors, think-tankers, all the allies he’d compiled over two decades in Washington.
At one point, Ryan turned his phone off, disappeared into the woods outside Janesville by himself, wielding a bow and arrow, crouching in a cramped tree stand for nearly an entire day. When he switched the phone back on, it buzzed once more. The voice on the other end belonged to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, telling Ryan of his obligation to serve at a moment of national uncertainty. Ryan, an observant Catholic, was vexed and bemused.