As of writing, Kevin McCarthy’s bid for speaker has gone down in flames eleven times, with the House holding more votes for speaker than any time since before the Civil War. With no signs of holdouts budging, negotiations and votes are expected to head into the weekend.
A number of other Republicans have been floated as potential candidates, and Rep. Byron Donalds is the main “opposition” candidate. Rep. Kevin Hern managed to pick up a vote, but only because Rep. Lauren Boebert used his name to troll McCarthy (to mislead him into thinking she'd be saying his name after hearing '"Kevin"). On the seventh ballot, Matt Gaetz nominated another candidate, Donald Trump, which drew gasps from Democrats in the House.
While Trump said he had no interest in being house speaker last year, he did respond to Gaetz nomination on his Truth Social website approvingly:
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