Jordan speaker run could be cut short following ‘disgraceful’ performance

Republican representatives stand conflicted about turning to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) ahead of the next vote to nominate a speaker of the House following Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) withdrawing his name late Thursday night.

The House majority leader dropped his speakership bid after struggling to gain support from his colleagues one day after winning the Republican nomination through a secret ballot against Jordan 113-99. Winning a vote on the floor appeared to be a long shot for either man as both had huge margins to make up in order to receive the 217 votes required to become speaker, but Jordan might have made his chances untenable.

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“Yesterday in conference, he gave the most disgraceful, ungracious — I can’t call it a concession speech — of all time,” Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO) told Politico. “There were gasps in the room.”

Wagner, who supported Scalise, said she would “absolutely not” flip her support to Jordan.

The concession speech wasn’t the only reason Wagner said she couldn’t get behind the House Judiciary Committee chairman’s bid to win the gavel.

Wagner said she was briefed on a private meeting between Scalise and Jordan, one she didn’t attend, that included Jordan trying to strong-arm Scalise into backing him if he failed to win after one round of votes.

“You get one ballot,” Jordan said, according to the briefing Wagner received. “And when you go down, you will nominate me.”

Russell Dye, Jordan’s spokesman, has denied the conversation happened the way Wagner and others have repeated it, saying the interaction was “entirely cordial.”

With at least one guaranteed “no” vote, Jordan’s future speakership is on the rocks, even before he has told House Republicans he wants to be reconsidered.

The margins are thin — former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) lost the gavel because eight Republicans voted along with every Democrat to approve the motion to vacate him — but not impossible to make up.

After the Republican conference named Scalise speaker-designee, Jordan pleaded to show support for him on the House floor, and members who originally showed support for Jordan followed suit.

Those same members, including Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), are back on Team Jordan.

“[Scalise] was trying to rally the votes. He couldn’t get to 217, so he had to back out,” Jackson said on Fox News on Friday morning. “Jim Jordan came in second, which is a phenomenal member of Congress, and would be an unbelievably great speaker.”

“I think we’re gonna give Jim a chance to try to whip some votes and see if he can get to 217 today,” Jackson said. “If not, then we’ll have some other people that would get nominated, and we’re going to keep pushing hard until we get this done.”

Jordan also faces the challenge of gathering support from the Republicans who are reeling from McCarthy’s historic ouster and continuing to float his name in the nomination mix.

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Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), who voted for Jordan on Wednesday and said he would vote for whomever the nominee on the floor is, began circulating a letter asking his colleagues to condemn the motion to vacate vote that removed McCarthy last week, urging GOP members to renominate him.

“Our conference never voted to oust our Speaker,” McClintock wrote. “Eight of our ‘morally superior’ colleagues made that decision for us. And for the last nine days, we’ve been jumping through their hoops. … Let’s put the ouster of Speaker McCarthy to a conference vote. Specifically, I propose to condemn the House vote that removed him, and renominate him for that office, and then keep voting until enough of our wayward colleagues return to the fold.”