Kevin McCarthy finally wins US Speaker vote after tensions boil over in Congress

Published

3 years ago

January 7, 2023

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Republican Kevin McCarthy has been elected as the new US Speaker after winning the 15th vote as tensions boiled over in Congress.

Mr McCarthy’s party had taken control of the House – the US lower chamber – following the midterm elections in the autumn, with a slim 222-212 majority.

Usually, election of the Speaker follows seamlessly, as a formality, with the leader of the largest party a shoo-in for the job.

However, recent splits in the Republican Party meant that did not happen until the 15th round of voting.

In the 14th ballot, Mr McCarthy received 216 votes – one shy of the number needed for a victory – as a small faction of right-wing hardliners held out.

He finally won, on the 15th ballot, on a margin of 216-211.

He was elected with the votes of fewer than half the House members only because five in his own party withheld their votes – not backing Mr McCarthy as leader, but also not voting for another contender.

“My father always told me, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” he told cheering fellow Republicans.

US President Joe Biden congratulated him on his success and said he is “prepared to work with Republicans” when he can.

However, the Republican party are now likely to turn the fight on the President and the Democrats, with Mr McCarthy promising subpoenas and investigations.

“Now the hard work begins,” Mr McCarthy said.

‘Stay civil’

After four days of ballots, stretching into a 14th round, a tense exchange ensued, with Mr McCarthy seen walking to the back of the chamber to confront Rep. Matt Gaetz, who did not vote for him.

Mr Gaetz was one of the six remaining Republican holdouts, and voted “present” in the 14th and 15th round.

This essentially meant he registered that he was in the House for the vote, but did not back anyone as the next Speaker.

A hostile back and forth took place after Mr McCarthy approached him, while a number of Republican lawmakers began to crowd them.

Rep. Mike Rogers, who did back Mr McCarthy in the vote, appeared to lunge in the direction of where Mr Gaetz was sitting, but was held back by other members.

“Stay civil,” someone was heard shouting.

Rep. Richard Hudson – another Mr McCarthy supporter – was also seen grabbing Mr Rogers around the mouth, but it was unclear what the argument was about.

Meanwhile, in another incident, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was seen waving a mobile phone around while on a phone call to a person saved as ‘DT’, implied to be Donald Trump.

Sharing the image on her Twitter account, the GOP member from Georgia wrote: “It was the perfect phone call.”

Despite many of the rebel Republicans being supporters of Mr Trump, the former president had repeatedly backed Mr McCarthy for Speaker.

McCarthy’s extensive concessions

A handful of far-right Republicans, from the conservative Freedom caucus, had felt Mr McCarthy was not conservative enough for the job, despite him agreeing to many of the detractors’ demands.

One of the most difficult requests that Mr McCarthy has agreed to is the reinstatement of a longstanding House rule that would allow any single member to call a vote to oust him from office.

That will sharply cut the power he will hold when trying to pass legislation on critical issues including funding the government, addressing the nation’s looming debt ceiling and other crises that may arise.

The Speaker is one of the most powerful positions in US politics, and this week’s failed votes marked the highest number of ballots for the speakership since 1859, two years before the start of the American Civil War.

Sessions to decide on the person for the job had rumbled on for hours in the chamber this week – one even topping eight hours.

What does the US Speaker do?

The Speaker of the House is one of the most powerful positions in US politics.

They oversee the daily business and set the running order in the House of Representatives.

Using their position, an effective Speaker can make or break a US President’s agenda, or, if from the same party as the President, effectively hinder opposition to their policies.

The Speaker is taken from the party with the largest majority in the House and so depending on their allegiances can be a help or a hindrance to the US President.

Previously the role was held by Democrat Nancy Pelosi. But after losing the House to the Republicans in the recent midterm elections, the position will now switch hands.

Since winning control of the House, Republicans have vowed to make voting investigations into US President Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings as a top priority.

In December, a White House statement accused House Republicans of planning to go after Biden “with politically motivated attacks chock full of long-debunked conspiracy theories”.

US

Trump will meet Putin even if Russian leader refuses to meet Zelenskyy

Published

2 hours ago

August 8, 2025

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Putin plays down idea of meeting Zelenskyy, saying 'certain conditions' must be met

Donald Trump has said he will meet Vladimir Putin even if the Russian leader refuses to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Asked by a reporter if Mr Putin needed to meet his Ukrainian counterpart in order to meet him, the US president replied: “No, he doesn’t. No.”

A Russian aide has said Washington and Moscow could hold talks “in the coming days”.

The same aide said the Americans had suggested a trilateral meeting but it was “not specifically discussed”.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “As President Trump said yesterday, the Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the president is open to this meeting.

“President Trump would like to meet with both President Putin and President Zelenskyy because he wants this brutal war to end.

“The White House is working through the details of these potential meetings and details will be provided at the appropriate time.”

The White House has set a deadline of Friday for Moscow to show progress towards ending the three-year war in Ukraine or suffer additional economic sanctions.

Asked if that deadline would hold, Mr Trump said of Mr Putin: “It’s going to be up to him. We’re going to see what he has to say. It’s going to be up to him. Very disappointed.”

The Russian leader has played down the possibility of talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying that while it is possible, certain conditions must be met.

Mr Putin had been responding to an American proposal of a trilateral meeting between him, the Ukrainian president and Mr Trump.

The idea was floated by Steve Witkoff, the US president’s envoy, during talks with Mr Putin on Wednesday, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.

War in Ukraine: Latest updates

Mr Ushakov said the three-way option was “simply mentioned by the American representative during the meeting in the Kremlin”.

He added, however: “This option was not specifically discussed.”

On the prospect of meeting Mr Zelenskyy, Vladimir Putin said: “I have already said many times that I have nothing against it in general – it is possible.”

However, he distanced himself from any such meeting happening soon, adding: “But certain conditions must be created for this. Unfortunately, we are still far from creating such conditions.”

Mr Zelenskyy offered to speak to Mr Putin in May, challenging him to meet in Istanbul for talks on ending the war in Ukraine – an invitation the Russian leader declined.

While a trilateral meeting appears to be off the agenda, Mr Ushakov said an agreement had been reached for Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to meet “in the coming days”.

After the US president touted a “very good prospect” of the leaders meeting for Ukraine ceasefire talks, Mr Ushakov said on Thursday that Russian and American officials had started working on the details.

“At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was essentially reached to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days,” he said.

“We are now beginning concrete preparations together with our American colleagues.”

Regarding a trilateral meeting, Mr Ushakov said: “We propose, first of all, to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with Trump, and we consider it most important that this meeting be successful and productive.”

It would be the first time the two leaders have met since Mr Trump returned to office, and follows a three-hour meeting between Mr Putin and Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Wednesday.

Following the meeting, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it appeared that Russia was “more inclined to a ceasefire”.

A poll from Gallup suggests 69% of Ukrainians support a negotiated end to the war with Russia – an almost complete reversal from 2022, when 73% favoured fighting until victory.

Most said they were sceptical the war would end soon, with 68% saying they believed it was unlikely that active fighting would stop within the next 12 months.

US

Trump and Putin’s first meeting in years does not necessarily mean a ceasefire in Ukraine

Published

2 hours ago

August 8, 2025

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Trump and Putin's first meeting in years does not necessarily mean a ceasefire in Ukraine

It could be diplomatic dynamite.

The first meeting between a sitting US and Russian president in more than four years, following one of the bleakest periods in the history of their countries’ bilateral relations.

But a Putin–Trump summit does not necessarily mean there will be a ceasefire.

Ukraine war latest: Kremlin aide’s full statement on Trump-Putin talks

On the one hand, it could signal that a point of agreement has been reached and a face-to-face meeting is needed to seal the deal.

That has always been Russia’s stance. It’s consistently said it would only meet at a presidential level if there’s something to agree on.

On the other hand, there might not be anything substantive. It might just be for show.

It might just be the latest attempt by the Kremlin to diffuse Donald Trump’s anger and dodge his deadline to end the war by Friday or face sanctions.

It would give Trump something that can be presented as progress, but in reality, it delivers anything but.

After all, there has certainly not been any sign that Moscow is willing to soften its negotiating position or step back from its goals on the battlefield.

Tellingly, perhaps, it’s this latter view which has been taken by some of the Russian press on Thursday.

“Putin won” is the headline in Moskovsky Komsomolets regarding the Kremlin leader’s meeting with Witkoff.

The state-run tabloid quotes a political scientist, Marat Bashirov, who claims Putin “bought time” ahead of Friday’s deadline.

“It is noteworthy that in his rhetoric [on sanctions] Trump did not mention Russia at all,” the paper notes.

Komsomolskaya Pravda is similarly dismissive.

“Donald Trump has two simple interests in connection with Ukraine: to earn money for America, and political whistles and the Nobel Peace Prize for himself,” it says.

“Russia has its own interests,” it adds, “securing them is what Vladimir Putin will seek at a meeting with Trump.”

At this stage, the most likely location is the United Arab Emirates. Putin met the country’s president in the Kremlin today, and afterwards said it would be a “suitable location”. It felt like a strong hint.

And the UAE certainly makes sense.

It’s played mediator for a number of the prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine; it has good relations with the US (and was one of Trump’s stops on his recent Middle East tour); and most importantly for Moscow, it’s not a member of the International Criminal Court. So Putin doesn’t have to worry about being arrested.

But if NBC’s reports are correct, that a Putin-Trump summit is conditional on the Russian president meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, then the summit may not happen at all.

Until now, Putin has refused to meet Zelenskyy, despite numerous demands from Kyiv, because he views him as illegitimate.

The Kremlin said the prospect of a trilateral meeting between the leaders was mentioned by Witkoff on Wednesday, but the proposal was left “completely without comment” by Russia.

US

OpenAI releases long-awaited GPT-5 AI chatbot upgrade

Published

2 hours ago

August 8, 2025

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OpenAI releases long-awaited GPT-5 AI chatbot upgrade

GPT-5, the long-awaited upgrade to the ChatGPT AI chatbot, has been released by its maker OpenAI.

It has been one of the most highly anticipated launches in Silicon Valley after OpenAI’s first offering ChatGPT – powered by its GPT-3 model – kick-started the current AI boom in late 2022.

“GPT-3 sort of felt like talking to a high school student,” said Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive.

“GPT-4, maybe it was like talking to a college student. But with GPT-5, now it’s like talking to an expert, a PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need, on demand.”

At the launch event, OpenAI claimed the new chatbot, which will be released to all ChatGPT users on Thursday, was more than a simple upgrade to its previous offerings.

According to OpenAI, the new model exceeds the chatbot competition from the likes of Google, X and Antropic on “benchmarks” – standardised tests used to rank models.

OpenAI claims it has been designed to be easier and more natural to communicate with, better at writing prose and advanced computer code, solving academic questions from mathematics to law, assisting with healthcare-related questions, as well as being safer than its predecessors.

“It’s an incredible superpower on demand,” claimed Mr Altman.

The model is also more intelligent in how it uses its own brain power – and therefore an expensive computing resource – according to OpenAI.

It is a hybrid of previous chatbots and slower, more computing-intensive “reasoning” models like OpenAI’s Deep Research.

Based on a user’s request, the model will decide how much “thinking” is required before answering, rather than requiring the user to switch between different models.

Although AI enthusiasts who had been expecting GPT-5 to represent “artificial general intelligence [AGI]” will be disappointed.

Despite this being OpenAI’s stated goal, Mr Altman billed GPT-5 as a “major upgrade” to GPT-4 and a “significant step along the path to AGI”.

But they’re clearly not there yet.

A real test of GPT-5 will be whether it sells.

OpenAI is projected to spend $8bn (£6bn) this year, on top of $5bn (£3.7bn) last year, and while it is expected to make a profit this year, the business case for increasingly powerful AI models is still not clear to many investors.

Given a single training run for GPT-5 is rumoured to have cost $500m (£373m), there will be an expectation the new model is significantly more useful to business users.

Despite a very slick demonstration of its coding skills at the launch presentation, where it built an online language learning game in seconds, GPT-5 will have to prove its worth for professional coding.

Many in the tech industry prefer Anthropic AI’s Claude model to write code. OpenAI and its investors will be hoping GPT-5 changes that.

AI experts will also be testing GPT-5’s tendency to “hallucinate”, an issue OpenAI claims to have improved with GPT-5.

But erroneous or bizarre answers are a problem that dogs all large generative AI models.

“Shiny things are always fun to play with, and I fully expect GPT-5 to be the shiniest so far,” said Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist at New York University and AI commentator.

“But that doesn’t mean that it is a critical step on the optimal path to AI that we can trust,” Mr Marcus added in a post.