In the latest round of the circus that is filling the vacant House Speaker position, Jim Jordan failed once again to get enough votes to become the next Speaker of the House.
Yesterday, 20 Republicans in the House voted against Jordan’s nomination. Today, that number rose to 22. Jordan’s going in the wrong direction.
Jordan, whom Donald Trump previously supported for the Speaker position, shows no signs of backing down. “We’re going to keep going,” said Jordan’s spokesperson Russell Dye.
Trump also threw his hat in the ring weeks ago.
“If they don’t get the vote, they have asked me if I would consider taking the speakership until they get somebody longer-term because I am running for president,” Trump said. “They have asked me if I would take it for a short period of time for the party until they come to a conclusion — I’m not doing it because I want to — I will do it if necessary, should they not be able to decide.”
This whole fiasco began after Matt Gaetz successfully led a charge to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over “not being conservative enough,” a move that left the House of Representatives without an official leader.
“It is becoming increasingly clear who the speaker of the House already works for, and it’s not the Republican Conference,” Gaetz had said.
Gaetz repeatedly voted against McCarthy in his confirmation hearings, though relented at the end. He claims McCarthy isn’t the conservative leader the GOP needs, especially after the vote to fund the U.S. government for another 45 days.
Gaetz said McCarthy will need to rely on Democrats to secure his job and also admitted the House Majority Leader probably has enough support to survive the oust attempt.
“If Kevin McCarthy works for Democrats and utilizes Democrats to keep power, that would be consistent with everything we’ve seen from him,” Gaetz said.
