Has Jim Jordan Won the Vote for House Speaker Yet?

ANSWER: Nope!

Hours ahead of a third vote for speaker of the House, Representative Jim Jordan insisted that he’s not backing down.

For about 10 minutes, the continuously imperiled House speaker nominee offered his thoughts to reporters in a bizarre speech that name-checked the Wright brothers, ironically emphasized the need for unity, and even managed to sprinkle in some conspiracy-mongering about the validity of the 2020 presidential election.

But if there was any purpose to the ultraconservative’s brief message, it was that he plans to plough ahead with yet another floor vote, despite intraparty insistence that he should back down after two rounds of voting in which he’s lost ground.

This did not seem to trouble Jordan at all. “There’s been multiple rounds of votes for speaker before,” Jordan quipped, referring to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s 15-ballot bid to land the House’s highest position, while the prospect of a series of weekend votes for the position looms over the legislature.

But momentum is not on Jordan’s side, as meetings between the Trump ally and his holdouts have gone south. Several of Jordan’s detractors have hardened in their opposition, in reaction to the nominee’s strong-arming campaign, in which Jordan allies sent anonymous threats to congressmen and their spouses. Now Jordan’s antagonists are unwilling to negotiate further, reported Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman. Instead, they want Jordan to know that he will not be speaker.

Even among his allies, Jordan’s shtick is beginning to “wear a little thin,” and he has possibly “worn out his welcome,” one senior House GOP member told Fox News’s Chad Pergram.

Jordan’s long-shot bid to become speaker has only grown more fraught as the days have dragged on. In his first floor vote, 20 Republicans voted against him. In the second, another two joined their camp. And dozens more may be waiting in the wings to hop into this chorus of refusal: On Wednesday and Thursday, some party members warned that the tribe against Jordan is much larger than the “no” votes that have been tallied, with some alleging that more than half of the Republican members in the House are prepared to vote “no.”

Meanwhile, the House is unable to act on any policy without someone behind the gavel. On Friday, the White House asked Congress for $100 billion in an emergency national security funding package that would provide $61.4 billion to Ukraine, $14.3 billion to Israel, and another $10 billion in humanitarian aid. But if Jordan spends the next few days still fruitlessly chasing a vote he seems destined to lose, there’s no telling when, or if, these measures will get approved.

It’s Day 16 without a House speaker, and congressional Republicans are no closer to electing someone to replace Kevin McCarthy than they were two weeks ago. Meanwhile, tensions appear to have reached a breaking point.

The GOP’s four-hour, closed-door meeting on Thursday began with a debate over extending Representative Patrick McHenry’s temporary speakership, but instead devolved into a full-blown meltdown, with party members pointing fingers at one another and somehow leaving the caucus even less unified than before.

McCarthy and Representative Matt Gaetz, one of the former speaker’s ousters, got especially heated. When Gaetz went to speak at the mic, McCarthy reportedly “screamed” at him to sit down. Representative Michael Bost then got “all emotional” and began cursing at Gaetz, huffing that the current predicament was “all his fault,” reported CNN’s Melanie Zanona.

“I think the whole country is screaming at Matt Gaetz,” McCarthy told Axios’s Juliegrace Brufke, denying allegations that he raised his voice.

One member of the House GOP turned to prayer. Another left for lunch. Still others took to a joint study session, scouring copies of the U.S. Constitution amid an unprecedented bid to expand McHenry’s power as speaker pro tempore so that he could run the House for weeks (or longer) while the party worked on electing a speaker.

But that plan—just like Representative Jim Jordan’s nomination for speaker, and Steve Scalise’s before him—lacks the necessary Republican votes to pass, which means only Democratic support could salvage it.

Jordan emerged from the GOP’s epic meeting to declare, “I’m still running for speaker, and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes.” But it’s not clear how he’ll get there.

The number of House Republicans on record opposing Jordan has grown from 20 to 22, and some of his detractors warn that the real number could be as high as 40. Which means there’s no end in sight to the GOP’s impasse.

GOP Representative Jim Banks said it best: “We don’t deserve the majority if we go along with a plan to give the Democrats control over the House of Representatives.”*

* This piece has been updated with the full quote from Banks.

After two failed floor votes, and his number of Republican supporters in decline, Representative Jim Jordan is backing down from his bid for House speaker.

The Ohio Republican announced Thursday morning that he would not be pursuing an additional floor vote, reported The Washington Post. Instead, Jordan is reversing course and backing a plan to expand the powers of Representative Patrick McHenry’s temporary speakership until January.

It’s currently unclear how many Republicans will get behind McHenry, though predictions haven’t been rosy. Ahead of a short recess, Texas Representative Pat Fallon estimated that two-thirds of the caucus will oppose the resolution, reported Punchbowl News’s John Bresnahan.

Other Republicans appeared frustrated and even betrayed by the turn of events, openly fuming to press about the McHenry plan.

“It’s absurd,” Indiana Representative Jim Banks told Fox News, noting that at least half of the Republican members in the House plan to vote against it. “It was the biggest ‘F.U.’ to Republican voters I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s going to take Democrats to make it happen. And that’s a historic betrayal to our Republican voters if we go along with it. It’s a big mistake,” Banks added.

Arizona Representative Debbie Lesko allegedly told Jordan that he should step down if he supports the McHenry resolution, snubbing Jordan’s behavior as “self-serving,” according to Politico’s Olivia Beavers.

Meanwhile, House Democrats have their own set of requirements for the fill-in.

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats want assurances that the temporary speaker will support the previously negotiated debt limit deal and consider supplemental aid to Ukraine and Israel. They also are demanding that whoever fills the seat be someone who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election results, reported Punchbowl News’s Heather Caygle.

McHenry refused to respond to any questions regarding the impending decision, reported Fox News’s Chad Pergram.

Former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell cut a deal with Fulton County prosecutors on Wednesday, pleading guilty to six misdemeanor charges in the Georgia election interference case just one day before her criminal trial was set to begin.

Powell, a prominent election fraud conspiracy theorist, was sentenced to six years probation and slapped with a $6,000 fine. She will also be required to pay $2,700 in restitution to the state of Georgia to cover the cost of replacing the violated election equipment.

As part of the deal, Powell is required to write an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and eventually will testify against her 17 co-defendants, including her onetime client Donald Trump.

By taking the plea deal, Powell is admitting to her role in the election-systems breach in Republican-heavy Coffee County in January 2021, where Trump supporters accessed and copied election data in hopes of subverting the presidential election results.

Powell is the second person to plead guilty in the racketeering case. Last month, Atlanta-area bail bondsman Scott Hall admitted to a special grand jury that he gained access to the voting machines. Hall has also agreed to testify at future trials.

Another co-defendant and alleged architect of the scheme, Kenneth Chesebro, allegedly rejected his plea deal, which would have given him three years’ probation and a $10,000 fine, ABC News reported. Jury selection in Chesebro’s expedited trial begins Friday.

Trial dates have not yet been set for Trump and his 16 remaining co-defendants.