Last night, Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Mica Soellner brought everybody up to date on the GOP speaker catastrophe, reporting, for example, that Sam Bankman Fried criminal Tom Emmer is considered the front runner. He took millions of dollars in stolen FTX funds and distributed them to House Republicans. That’s why he’s the frontrunner! McCarthy endorsed him, saying he’s “the right person for the job. He can unite the conference. He understands the dynamics of the conference. He also understands what it takes to win and keep a majority.”
Sherman, Bresnahan and Soellner also reported that Trump World gave the Emmer candidacy a thumbs down and that “they will try to derail Emmer’s candidacy.” Alex Isenstadt backed that assertion up last night. He reported that yesterday Señor Trumpanzee was telling his minions to kill Emmer’s nomination. He noted that “a sustained offensive from Trump, if one materializes, could spell doom, as any candidate for the job can only afford to lose a handful of votes. [Trump’s] top allies are already working to thwart Emmer’s candidacy. Trump supporters have begun passing around opposition research on the congressmember, and the pro-Trump ‘War Room’ podcast on Friday afternoon turned into an Emmer bash-fest. During an appearance on the program, top Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn noted that Emmer had yet to endorse Trump in the Republican presidential primary. ‘If somebody is so out of step with where the Republican electorate is, where the MAGA movement is, how can they even be in the conversation?’ Epshteyn said. ‘We need a MAGA speaker. That’s what it comes down to. Because if you look at the numbers, if you look at the energy, if you look at the heat, this is the Trump party, this is the MAGA party. It is no longer the old-school khaki establishment Republican Party.’” Bannon labeled Emmer a “Trump hater.” Yes, the newest qualification to be speaker: slavish devotion for Señor T and his psychotic grievances. “In conversations Friday,” wrote Isenstadt, “Trump made clear he was concerned by the prospect of Emmer in the speaker’s chair, telling people he believed the Minnesota Republican was not a fan, according to two people familiar with those private talks. Trump has complained, they say, that Emmer has not forcefully defended him against the indictments he is facing. He has also pointed to Emmer’s criticism of him following the Trump-inspired Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and reports— which Emmer strenuously denied— that as then-chair of the House GOP campaign arm, he advised Republican candidates to avoid mentioning Trump.”
This new race for speaker, which is already kicking off with a deluge of frenzied phone calls, features ten candidates at this point. And there may be more. The filing deadline is Sunday at noon.
But a number of the hopefuls are back-benchers and relatively low-profile members who’ve never served in the leadership. Winning a race for speaker is going to be very difficult if not impossible for them.
In addition to Emmer, here’s the list of declared candidates and those considering jumping in so far:
GOP Reps. Byron Donalds (FL), Jack Bergman (MI), Roger Williams (TX), Austin Scott (GA), Jodey Arrington (TX), Pete Sessions (TX), Mike Johnson (LA), Kevin Hern (OK) and Mark Green (TN) have all either announced or are considering bids.
Emmer likely benefits from a large field. He’s run a contested leadership race before, has a whip operation in place already and enjoys a big base of support as a former two-term NRCC chair.
…The House Republican Conference will hold a candidate forum Monday and a closed-party election Tuesday. In order to win the nomination, a candidate needs to garner a majority of the support in the House Republican Conference.
McHenry said he hopes to schedule a floor vote for Tuesday, which will be the 21st day that the House is without a speaker. But we see this as unlikely given the number of candidates in the race.
Jordan’s fall from grace ended Friday afternoon in a closed House Republican Conference meeting. The party conducted a secret-ballot vote asking whether lawmakers wanted Jordan to remain as the speaker-designate and the Ohio Republican lost, 112-86. Earlier today, Jordan got 194 votes on the House floor, with 25 Republicans voting against him.
According to the NY Times’ running coverage yesterday, Gaetz is furious that Jordan was
"knifed by secret ballot, anonymously, in a closed-door meeting in the bowels of the Capitol. This was truly swamp tactics on display." Earlier, The Times reported that “The eight Republicans led by Matt Gaetz who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker have sent a letter to their colleagues saying they are willing to accept some form of punishment if that will move holdouts to vote in favor of Jim Jordan.” That may have been tempting… but not tempting enough. Jordan lost 3 more votes and wound up with just 194, five fewer than the day before. Then Republicans met behind closed doors and booted Jordan from the race. Very bad day for American fascism-- and very bad day for Trump, who had been campaigning vigorously-- as vigorously as he's capable of for someone not named Donald Trump-- for his puppet to be elected speaker.
The Times also reported that DeSantis stuck his nose into this too, accusing accused House Republicans of engaging in “palace intrigue” instead of “delivering results… Look, I think it’s unfortunate that these guys can’t get their act together. It’s like the gang that can’t shoot straight. They’ve been running around like chickens with their heads cut off. It’s not inspiring confidence. There’s a lot of theater.” Making friends, as usual.
One reason why the GOP House chaos continues is that that have paid no price for it in the polls (at least not yet). Although that's finally starting to show up. It takes a while to catch the public's attention and then to sink in. Data For Progress reported that a majority of voters, including 54% of Independents, think that Republicans are to blame for the empty speaker chair in the House of Representatives. 57% of voters agree that “Republicans are to blame. They are the party with majority power and they haven't been able to govern effectively. Repub licans should be able to agree on a Speaker of the House within their own party.” While just 28% agree with the GOP talking point— that Democrats are to blame. They should not have voted with eight Republicans to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. Democrats should have put aside their differences to save McCarthy for the sake of stability.”
Andrew Sullivan made sure his readers know that “it’s still vital to remember that a major political party is backing this incoherent, unhinged, fact-free narcissist to be president of the United States. It is therefore no surprise to discover that the same party is completely incapable of forming a stable majority in the House of Representatives because it too is incoherent, divided, unhinged, and narcissistic. We’ve never had this amount of time without a Speaker in the history of the House. But then we’ve never had a majority party as utterly vacuous as this one… [The GOP is] wedded to ideological abstractions, emotional hissy-fits, constitutional brinkmanship and a strongman candidate is not a conservative party. It is the anti-conservative party. Objecting to everything is objecting to nothing. Gerrymandering yourself into a homogeneous, minority cult only rewards ever more extremism. Obsessed with themselves, demanding the impossible, and risking everything for it: this is not a party that is in any way fit for government, and yet it is a party that is all but guaranteed huge sway because America is so polarized that extremists get away with anything. I have plenty of issues with Democrats. They too have a hard time corralling their extremes. But they are capable of governing a democratic society according to the rules that such a society is built upon. The Republicans, quite simply, are not. Their candidate is a terrifying joke. Their party, as it has devolved into Bannonism, is a cancer on our democracy.”