Kevin McCarthy elected as new speaker of the US House

After high level drama,Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has been elected as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. He was picked after days of Election Drama, making the election process for electing the Speaker as the longest in 160 years. 57-year-old McCarthy got 216 votes in the final tally, to be elected as Washington's top legislator, who presides over House business and is second in line to the presidency. The divided Republicans took 15 rounds of voting over four days to elect the speaker.  The Democrats’ Hakeem Jeffries got 212 votes. It was the first time in a century that a speaker was not elected in the first round.

McCarthy, of California, replaces veteran legislator Nancy Pelosi, who announced plans to step down from the Democratic House leadership last month. Jeffries, a New York Democrat, will serve as House minority leader in the new Congress. The longest fight for the speakership was in 1855, lasting more than two months with a staggering 133 ballots, during debates over slavery in the run-up to the Civil War. The new House speaker has said he would launch a congressional investigation into the business dealings of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden — an issue that Democrats dismiss as a conspiracy theory.