Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Friday, Oct 03, 2025

The 20 Republicans holding the speakership hostage are employing Trumpian tactics while blatantly ignoring Trump's advice, extremism expert says

The 20 Republicans holding the speakership hostage are employing Trumpian tactics while blatantly ignoring Trump's advice, extremism expert says

Far-right lawmakers have taken a page from Trump's playbook: Politics as performance and performance over principle, expert Eric K. Ward said.

A sect of far-right Republicans have taken the new Congress by storm, repeatedly stonewalling Rep. Kevin McCarthy's bids for House speaker in a dramatic display of power and pandemonium seemingly straight from the playbook of a not-too-distant president.

"I think we as a public are beginning to witness what Trumpism looks like without Donald Trump," Eric K. Ward, senior advisor to the Western States Center and an expert on extremism, told Insider.

Twenty Trump-loving lawmakers are essentially holding the Republican leadership position hostage even as McCarthy kowtows to their demands following his now ten failed attempts to secure the speakership.

But these representatives' similarities to the former president go beyond their political identities — nearly all of the holdouts are members of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, which has long been a thorn in the side of the larger conference and frequently came to Trump's defense while he was in office.

Coalescing behind a new candidate each day — Rep. Matt Gaetz seemingly jokingly voted for Trump during the seventh ballot on Thursday — and refusing to back McCarthy even after he conceded to many of their original demands are examples of the Trumpian approach: Politics as performance and performance over principle, Ward said.

"The influential part of these 20 votes don't care whether they control the House speakership or not," he told Insider.

What they're really after, Ward argued, is the "destruction" of American democracy. 

Ward warned that the in-fighting over the speakership position is likely to be just the first step in the Republican party's effort to "create a swirl of chaos, inertia, and stagnation" to wear down the American public, continue to pit the country against one another, and keep the masses distracted.

The latest vote comes just one day before the two-year anniversary of the deadly January 6 attack in which a mob of Trump supporters laid siege to the US Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election results. The House committee investigating the insurrection argued in its final report released last month that Trump and other Republican lawmakers essentially aided and abetted the rioters by propagating lies and conspiracy theories about the election.


Former President Donald Trump

"It should not go without notice that the last time they attempted to destroy American democracy from outside the Capitol and [two] years later it appears to be taking place from inside the Capitol," Ward said. 

While Trump's legacy lives on in the twenty lawmakers' tactics, his power among the group has diminished in the months since he left office. He no longer holds the sway over this sect of lawmakers that he once did, evidenced by his failed efforts to rally the troops behind McCarthy this week, Ward said.

The former president issued a last-minute plea on Wednesday morning, urging Republicans to set aside their differences and make McCarthy speaker. But his Truth Social request failed to make a difference: McCarthy has lost an additional six votes in the aftermath of Trump's post. 

Trump switched his approach on Thursday, this time suggesting that McCarthy's repeated failures are actually a "Republican victory" that will cement the eventual speaker as "bigger and more important" than if someone had been chosen "the more traditional way."

But as the House commenced its 10th fruitless vote in three days, there was little indication that a final decision was imminent.

Ward warned that this chaos will be just the beginning should the 20 Republicans ultimately get their way.

"If they receive one more concession, the lesson they will have sent is that a small group of bullies can shut down Congress if they're not getting their way and their way is exclusion," he told Insider.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×