Ohio House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has decided not to humiliate himself again by going for another vote for the Speakership today. Instead, Gymmie will temporarily support interim speaker Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) until January.
CNN's John Berman and Lauren Fox broke the news.
"Yeah, we are expecting in the private conference meeting, according to multiple sources that me and the CNN colleagues have been talking with, that Jim Jordan is going to point to lean to the resolution to empower Patrick McHenry to January rather than running again today on the floor for house speaker there," Fox said.
"Is there some thinking behind this?" Berman asked. "He is not expecting to drop his speakership, but it is going to give him more time to shore up the support, and will it work over the next several months?"
"It is unclear because there are a number of proponents who say they will not back him, and it is not clear that more time is going to change their minds, but on the legislative front, empowering McHenry for several months would essentially allow him to clear the deck for any future speaker on the toughest and most difficult legislation to pass through the House Republican Conference including ensuring that the government is funded after the November 17th deadline and coming together with the Democrats on a full spending bill in November, and Ukrainian aid and Israeli aid, and as the White House is planning to send up a supplemental request, and so that is why Jordan may be planning to support this resolution to empower McHenry, but it is significant news that Jim Jordan is not expected to run on the floor for speaker today on the third ballot after he lost 20 and more members on the second ballot," she said in what can only be described as the longest sentence ever.
"I think it is safe to say that he is backing off and pushing for another vote today because he was headed for a defeat and bigger defeat," Berman said. "He was going to lose a third ballot, and now at least he has a pause, off-ramp, and empowering Patrick McHenry to serve as some type of speaker pro-tem until January, Lauren. There is a lot of let in there, and what does it mean that the house can and will not be able to do in the next two months?"
"Well, right now, because McHenry is in the interim role, the belief is that he did not have the power to bring the legislation to the floor of the House and not even a resolution to say that the House supported Israel, and in a bigger and expanded role, he could bring the legislation to the floor, and acting as any other speaker would, and that is again so essentially because that government funding deadline is coming November 17th," Fox said.
"Yes, and the Democrat from Illinois told me, yeah, he would support empowering McHenry for some time, and that what the Democrats have said, and the fine print, and they could get it in the next few hours, and lots of new things reporting here, and as you have reported, Jim Jordan is suggesting that he wants to be the Speaker and might give it another try in January," Berman said. "Of course, January is a long way off, and we will have to wait and see, but he is not one to out and out quit, correct?"
"Yeah, that is interesting, and before this all came out, I did talk to Warren Davidson, who is a close ally of Jim Jordan this morning, and he said that the conference needs time to heal," Fox added. Think of what has transpired within the last 16 days. A speaker oust and another candidate came to the forefront and won in a closed-door meeting, Steve Scalise. and he could not get the votes, and he dropped out because of the Jordan detractors. Then Jim Jordan was running, and a lot of bad blood and a lot of raw nerves in the words of Warren David, is that the thinking of Jordan allies to give it some time, and Jordan is not dropping out, but see if he can get there over the next several months."
TLDR: Jordan will hold off until January to humiliate himself again while, in the meantime, he supports McHenry to wield the gavel until he possibly gets his little webbed hands on it. And all of this is confusing because Republicans can't govern. They're completely dysfunctional.
Trump is losing his power of endorsing politicians. That's got to suck.
UPDATE: There is a rebellion forming inside the House Republican conference
These guys are a bunch of clowns, and that's being mean to clowns.
