Kevin McCarthy Asks Student Who Played Him in Simulation If It Took Her ’15 Rounds to Win’
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) demonstrated a sense of humor about his long journey to the top post in the House of Representatives on Thursday.
At an event during which McCarthy welcomed and took pictures with visitors to the Capitol Building, he was approached by a student who told him that she “got to be like you in the simulation we did, I was the Speaker of the House.”
“Awesome!” exclaimed McCarthy before pausing to take a picture with her.
After waiting a beat, he followed up with a question: “It didn’t take you 15 rounds to win, though, did it?”
This is my favorite exchange from today’s pop-up photo line:
Visitor: “Hi, I got to be you in the simulation we did. I was the Speaker of the House.”@SpeakerMcCarthy: “Awesome!”
[takes a beat for photo]
“It didn’t take you 15 rounds to win though did it?” pic.twitter.com/O0H9mpcBox
— Caleb Smith (@CalebJSmith) July 13, 2023
McCarthy was finally chosen to serve as Speaker on January 7 after 15 rounds of voting by his colleagues. A cohort of Republican holdouts were responsible for the delay in McCarthy’s ascension, who first seemed poised to do so all the way back in 2015, when Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) resigned while McCarthy was serving as his right-hand man.
Conservative opposition to McCarthy then eventually resulted in his dropping out of the race.
“You want to know the best way to know if someone’s going to be successful?” McCarthy asked another student on Thursday. “Perseverance, you never give up.”
