House Majority Leader Steve Scalise hardly had time to withdraw his bid to be speaker before Rep. Jim Jordan was on the phone trying to drum up support. That leaves Republicans to make a dire choice: continue in chaos or be browbeaten into accepting a MAGA overlord who will turn the House into Trump 2024 headquarters. They are deciding that in a conference meeting Friday morning.
Just how toxic would Jordan be in the top job? That has been demonstrated in his efforts to undermine Scalise’s bid. Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri, a McCarthy ally, spilled the tea on Jordan Thursday night: “Yesterday in conference, he gave the most disgraceful, ungracious — I can’t call it a concession speech — of all time. There were gasps in the room.”
She went on to relate a confrontation—which other members confirmed—between Scalise and Jordan after that conference selected Scalise. Jordan offered to nominate Scalise on the floor but said that if Scalise didn’t make it to 217 votes on the first ballot, he had to quit and turn it over to Jordan. “You get one ballot,” Jordan reportedly said.” And when you go down, you will nominate me.” Scalise reportedly pushed back, saying that the conference rules and the majority vote made him the candidate. “America wants me,” Jordan supposedly replied before “storming” out of the room.
That left Wagner as a hard no on Jordan’s bid, along with other Scalise allies, including Reps. Austin Scott of Georgia, Carlos Giménez and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, and Mike Simpson of Idaho. That’s enough Republicans to refuse Jordan the 217 votes he needs if all House members are present and voting.
But that holds true only as long as the supposed moderates are willing to accept the uncertainty and chaos of waiting for someone else to rise up. One has already capitulated to Jordan: Rep. Mark Molinaro, one of the New York Republicans in a district that voted Democratic in the 2020 presidential election.
That kind of cowering to power is what Jordan can capitalize on, and he seems intent on bulldozing his way to a vote as soon as possible. On Friday morning, he succeeded in removing one obstacle already. The conference was to consider four amendments to the nominating process to require a certain threshold of votes before going to the floor. All of the amendments were withdrawn or tabled.
Jordan might also be trying to exploit a numbers problem on both sides of the aisle, as members from both parties left town on Thursday. Democrats are trying to be ready for that.
It’s a risky proposition trying to remove Jordan if he gets voted in, even by a fraction of Congress. Everything now seems to depend on the strength of moderate Republican spines in opposing Jordan. That’s a pretty dire prospect.
Sign if you agree: No more MAGA circus. Hakeem Jeffries for speaker.
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