Craziest adjournment

House holds 'craziest adjournment vote,' buying McCarthy more time

Eric Ting

House narrowly votes to adjourn until Thursday.

California Rep. Kevin McCarthy narrowly escaped another defeat in his bid to become speaker of the House of Representatives when the body moved to adjourn until Thursday.

The House was supposed to resume voting on a new speaker at 5 p.m. PT, but voted to adjourn even further until 9 a.m. Thursday. The vote total was 216-214, with four anti-McCarthy Republicans — Reps. Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert and Eli Crane — joining Democrats in opposing the move to adjourn. Two Democrats and two Republicans did not vote.

Several congressional reporters described the wild scene as members of Congress raced to get in their votes.

Politico's Nicholas Wu tweeted, "I’m literally seeing members of Congress sprinting into the House chamber to vote on this," while Punchbowl News' Jake Sherman wrote, "this is the craziest adjournment vote i have ever seen," and "the house without rules is amazing."

Had the two Democrats — Reps. Tony Cardenas and Adriano Espaillat — voted with the rest of their party (and had the other two Republicans who didn't vote not cast their ballots), the motion would have failed and another speaker vote would have been held.

The move buys McCarthy more time to negotiate with the 21 Republicans not voting for him. Ahead of the adjournment vote, he told CNN that he was making progress in those discussions.