Q&A of the Day – Is it Really Possible for Chuck Grassley to Become President?
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio Say what? Is it really possible for Chuck Grassley to become president? Please explain!
Bottom Line: Yes, it is really possible for Chuck Grassley to become the next president if the GOP can’t unify behind a House Speaker prior to January 20th. Today’s note is in response to a statement I made while filling in for Clay Travis and Buck Sexton last week. While speaking of the need for the GOP to stop the infighting, and to unify behind a House Speaker, as multiple Republicans in the House have once again indicated they’re either not intending to vote for House Speaker Mike Johnson, the man Donald Trump told the conference to unify behind, I mentioned that not only would President-elect Trump’s agenda be compromised in the process, most importantly – there wouldn’t even be a President Trump without a House speaker in place. So, let’s break it down...
The 119th Congress is set to convene this Friday, January 3rd. The first order of business is for all newly elected members of congress to be sworn in. This means all newly elected senators and every member of the House of Representatives. The next order of business is for leadership votes. Most importantly, as it pertains to this conversation, is the House speakership. It’s literally not possible for the House to begin to carry out business until a speaker is agreed upon, as it’s the Speaker of the House that determines the House’s agenda. We saw this play out in the previous congress when House business was delayed by three days as it took 15 rounds of voting for Kevin McCarthy to finally win a majority vote to become speaker. A delay this time around, when congress must certify the results of a presidential election, would have far greater consequences compared to the 118th congress convening following midterm elections.
According to the Constitution, a joint session of congress is to convene on January 6th, a week from today, to certify the presidential election results. If, however, by next Monday the House doesn’t have a speaker, it’s not possible to convene a joint session of congress, and thus the certification of the presidential election wouldn’t take place. If that were to happen there would be a cascading set of circumstances and consequences.
If Donald Trump is certified as the next president, the senate can begin its business of voting on Trump’s cabinet nominees requiring senate approval. Doing so would enable Trump to hit the ground running (as he’s stated, he intends to have his administration “fully operational” by 2 pm on the 20th). So literally every day the certification would be pushed back it would harm Donald Trump’s agenda – an inexcusable thing for a Republican House majority to do. But let’s say that by January 20th there still isn’t a House speaker and thus presidential certification vote. What happens then?
Under the Constitution, there must be a new president sworn in on January 20th. Without a vice president in place, the next in line in succession is the House speaker. Of course, if we don’t have a House speaker, bringing about this potential crisis, we’d then have to go to the next in line behind the House speaker which is the Senate president pro tempore which will be 91-year-old Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley. So that’s how it could happen.
Due to the House defection of Matt Gaetz – Republicans have an extremely slim 219-215 majority to work within as the process kicks off on Friday. That means there can be only one Republican defector in the House speaker vote if all Democrats are unified against a GOP nominee, which is likely. This might be holiday week for many; however, it’s a huge news week for what will be in the House come Friday.