House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who earned the Republican nomination for Speaker of the House last Friday, failed to earn enough votes earlier on Tuesday to be selected on the first round of voting. Earlier last week, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) had earned the nomination, but dropped out before a floor vote could even take place, as it was clear he didn't have the votes. Now, despite voting for Jordan on the House floor on Tuesday, to applause, it would appear he's "not being a team player," as mentioned in a post from CNN's Annie Grayer. The Capitol Hill reporter posted about Scalise's failure to commit to further helping Jordan in his race for speaker.
A source familiar to the situation has confirmed as much to Townhall.
Scalise spox: "Leader Scalise has been the only candidate throughout this process who has publicly declared he will be supportive of whomever the conference nominates for Speaker, and his position has not changed. He voted for Jim Jordan on the floor and will continue to do so." https://t.co/reMOQ5v3QU
— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) October 17, 2023
Scalise voted for Jordan, he will continue doing so, as a spokesperson stressed in a statement to Grayer. That may be all that he's willing to do, though. Grayer also posted about how Scalise wouldn't give Jordan a nominating speech on the floor, despite Jordan's own willingness to do so for Scalise. It's also worth highlighting how statement from Scalise's spokesperson speaks to Jordan's status as the nominee.
Before the first vote, Jordan asked Scalise to give him a nominating speech on the House floor and a source tells CNN Scalise wouldn't commit to doing so. Scalise voted for Jordan on floor.
— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) October 17, 2023
When Scalise was the Speaker elect, Jordan offered to give Scalise a nominating speech
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) ended up giving a rousing nominating speech for Jordan.
Ultimately, Jordan came up 17 votes short of the magic number of 217, with 200 votes on the first ballot. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), nominated earlier by House Democratic Conference Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA), received 212 votes. No House Democrat broke ranks. There were 20 House Republicans who voted for others. With seven House Republicans voting for Scalise, he received the third amount of votes of any candidate for speaker.
There are already hundreds of replies and quoted reposts of Grayer's post from users expressing shock at the update.
It was later revealed on Tuesday afternoon that the next vote will take place on Wednesday morning at 11:00am.
Interesting history lesson on how we got here: Steve Scalise destroyed the conservative Republican Study Committee on John Boehner’s behalf 10 years ago (RSC members and staff weren’t sufficiently supportive of Boehner’s garbage budget deal with Senate Democrats), sowing the… https://t.co/djKSEWUwaf
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 17, 2023
Jordan backed Scalise when he was the conference’s pick, and now Jordan has more support than Scalise did.@SteveScalise should definitely help out https://t.co/KOoI1bUwg4
— ALX 🎃 (@alx) October 17, 2023
lol great work guys, really playing 5-D chess here, amazing strategy as an election year looms, A+ messaging https://t.co/jefneIEhBP
— Sarah Rumpf (@rumpfshaker) October 17, 2023
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