Lost 2nd vote. Oh my.
Any microscopic amount of trust left between the GOP base and leadership evaporated during his sell out over the budget before the new congress.
Frankly McCarthy has a fatal combination of hubris with low situational awareness to be an Speaker, he should have known this would happen and he needs to withdraw immediately.
But I suspect McCarthy is now working behind the scenes to arrive at some sort of power sharing arrangement with the Democrats, and they will most like adjourn today without a speaker.
Apparently something similar happened during the run up to the Civil War, and the Congress voted to change the rules to allow the simple majority of all votes cast to elect a Speaker, and I would not put it past McCarthy to try something like this.