US deadlock persists over top House job

The deeply riven US House of Representatives was engulfed in crisis for a second day running on Wednesday, as fresh rounds of voting failed to deliver a new speaker.

Conservative hard-liners have been blocking establishment pick Kevin McCarthy in a humiliating standoff that has paralyzed the lower chamber of Congress since it flipped to narrow Republican control after the new year.

Twenty Republicans denied McCarthy the majority in three drawn-out votes on Wednesday — forcing another overnight adjournment with little to show for the drama — after the rebels had spent Tuesday blocking the California congressman's path to the gavel.

Republican infighting, described by Democratic President Joe Biden as "embarrassing for the country", has made the 2023 speakership race the first in a century to require multiple rounds of voting.

"It's taking so long and the way they're dealing with each other — and the rest of the world is looking," he told reporters.

The stalemate has left the chamber unable to swear in members, fill committees, adopt rules for legislating or negotiate a path through the paralysis.

The House adjourned until noon on Thursday after the sixth indecisive ballot, allowing the Republicans a few precious hours to regroup and settle on a new strategy before going back into the fray.

McCarthy, who has raised millions of dollars to elect right-wing lawmakers, dragged his party back to a 222-212 House majority in last year's midterms after four years in the wilderness.

The 57-year-old has long coveted the opportunity to replace Democrat Nancy Pelosi, something of an icon in US politics who held the gavel in the last Congress.

But McCarthy's speaker bid has opened a troubling rift within the House Republicans, with centrists referring to the hard-right faction leading the charge against him as the "Taliban 20".

The standoff has sparked frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations as McCarthy's allies sought to cut a deal with his conservative detractors that could also win the approval of moderates, US media said.

They reported that the rival sides were in talks about setting up a "negotiating group" to hash out their differences, made up of four McCarthy allies and four representatives of the renegade Republicans.

McCarthy meanwhile told reporters in Congress that he planned to stay in the bid and had spoken to his biggest VIP backer, Donald Trump, who was still supporting his candidacy.

The former president duly called for an end to the McCarthy blockade, warning the renegade Republicans not to "turn a great triumph into a giant and embarrassing defeat".

Just hours before voting began on Wednesday, former vice-president Mike Pence joined Trump in urging Republicans to rally around McCarthy.

The comments did not move the needle at all on the House floor and were curtly dismissed by normally staunch Trump ally Lauren Boebert, who said her "favorite president" had things backward.

'Time to withdraw'

"The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, 'sir, you do not have the votes and it's time to withdraw'," she said.

More than half of the lawmakers who have voted against McCarthy had said the 2020 election had been stolen or rigged or that Trump was the rightful winner over Biden, The New York Times reported.

No House business can take place without a speaker, the chamber's presiding officer who is second in line to the presidency, meaning lawmakers-elect have to continue voting until someone wins a majority.

Should McCarthy, who has lost every round so far to Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, ultimately decide to pull out, the two parties are likely to start casting around for a "unity" candidate — a consensus Republican willing to work across the aisle.

The Republicans will first consult their own ranks though, where two McCarthy loyalists — incoming House majority leader Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, a darling of the right — look like the most viable alternatives.

Agencies and Xinhua contributed to this story.