Republican Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois on the House floor on January 6, 2023.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
The recent speakership fight took more of a toll on House Republicans than it seemed at the time.One House Republican said he got so stressed out that he started vomiting.”It took a lot of prayer to get through it,” said Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois.
As it turns out, the recent weeks-long vacancy in the speaker’s chair was more traumatic for House Republicans than it may have seemed at the time.
After Kevin McCarthy was ousted on October 3rd, Republicans cycled through several different speaker nominees before finally landing on Rep. Mike Johnson 22 days later.
Republican Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois told POLITICO that he got so stressed out during that period that he began developing physical symptoms, including headaches and an upset stomach “that occasionally led him to vomiting.”
That stress only began to alleviate, Bost said, when Rep. Mike Johnson was finally elected speaker of the House.
“It took a lot of prayer to get through it,” Bost told POLITICO.
First elected to the House in 2014, Bost previously made waves for screaming at fellow Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida on the House floor during the first speakership fight in January, when Kevin McCarthy was struggling to gain the support of a group of hard-right holdouts.
Republican Mike Bost stood up and yelled at Matt Gaetz as he tore into McCarthy pic.twitter.com/K1fRaiR9hu
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 6, 2023
“This is not going to bring anyone,” Bost yelled at Gaetz as the Florida congressman trashed McCarthy’s speakership bid as a “vanity project.”
But it’s not just him — several House Republicans are clearly feeling the weight of the last few weeks.
On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee accused Kevin McCarthy of elbowing him in the back, which the former speaker later denied.
“He’s twelve,” Burchett told Business Insider moments after the alleged altercation, referring to McCarthy.
And on Wednesday, when Business Insider asked Republican Rep. Greg Murphy of North Carolina if he was glad the “speaker drama” was over, he laughed.
“Is it?” Murphy replied. “I didn’t know if you were referring to the elbows.”