Jim Jordon of Ohio: NAJ screen shot
By Glynn Wilson —
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A behind the scenes scorched earth political pressure campaign over the weekend failed to generate enough votes for right-wing flame thrower Jim Jordon of Ohio to be approved as Speaker of the House in a floor vote on Tuesday. In the final analysis, he only got 200 votes. He needed 217.
Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader for the Democrats, got 212 votes, while 20 members voted for other candidates.
Steve Bannon, who should be in jail without access to a cell phone or internet access for his conviction of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee, has been pushing the MAGA right to pressure and intimidate Republicans in the House to support Jordon as speaker, along with Sean Hannity of Fox News and others.
On his podcast “War Room,” and in his extensive email and phone list and on X, formerly known as Twitter, Bannon has been responding to reports that Hannity has been emailing Republican lawmakers to ask them directly why they are not supporting Jordan for the speaker’s role following his nomination for the candidacy by the party, while outlining the need to urgently fill the position.
Bannon, a top Trump ally and former campaign guru who is cozy with fascists around the globe and appears at times to be an anarchist, has reacted to claims that supporters of Jordan are trying to intimidate Republicans to back the Ohio congressman for the House Speaker role.
The Republicans nominated Jordan last week, following the MAGA Republican move to can Kevin McCarthy in a 216-210 vote on October 3.
But like House Majority Leader Stave Scalise, who withdrew his name from consideration last week after it appeared he did not have the votes on the House floor, it appeared Tuesday morning that Jordan didn’t have enough support within the party to get a simple 217 vote majority. Democrats were certainly not going to support him, but the pressure campaign managed to peel away some of the opposition.
The email from Hannity, shared on social media by Axios reporter Juliegrace Brufke, is allegedly being sent to House Republicans who are not backing Jordan. Brufke posted the contents of the email on X, formerly Twitter, while claiming some moderate Republicans are “growing increasingly irritated” with allies of Jordan trying to “pressure them” into voting for him. She also claimed that Hannity’s show “has gotten involved in the efforts” to elect the MAGA congressman who has also been endorsed by Trump.
While sharing Brufke’s post, NBC’s senior national politics reporter Sahil Kapur wrote: “This is where the rubber meets the road. Jim Jordan’s allies are betting his opponents buckle when he puts them on record and conservative media lights them up. Trump is with Jordan, creating an added specter of retribution. Will come down to whether 5+ ‘Never Jim’ Rs hold firm.”
In a response on social media site Gettr, Bannon said: “That’s the plan.”
“We intend to break the old bulls in front of the nation,” Bannon told Newsweek.
Washington Post Live anchor Leigh Ann Caldwell said she is also aware of the email, posting on X: “One member said Hannity reached out directly with this same message — that the war in Israel is a reason to get behind Jordan. Member told me it’s not going to persuade them.”
The five “Never Jim” votes mentioned by Kapur is referencing how Jordan cannot afford to lose the support of just five House Republicans in a ballot for House Speaker, due to the GOP’s slight 221-212 majority in the lower chamber.
Following his nomination, a second secret House ballot was held on Friday which revealed a 152-55 split in support for Jordan as speaker. Jordan is said to have spent the weekend attempting to garner endorsements from his own party in order to achieve the almost unanimous GOP support to get elected House Speaker without the need of assistance from the Democrats.
When asked by NBC if there are five “Never Jordan” votes on Thursday, New York GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis replied: “There’s probably five ‘Never Everybodys’—that’s the problem.”
The email which is alleged to have been sent from Hannity’s team to some GOP lawmakers reads: “Sources tell Hannity that rep xxxx is not supporting Rep Jim Jordan for Speaker. Can you please let me know if this is accurate?
“And, if true, Hannity would like to know why during a war breaking out between Israel and Hamas, with the war in Ukraine, with the wide open borders, with a budget that’s unfinished why would Rep. xxxx be against Jim Jordan for speaker? Please let us know when Rep xxx plans on opening the People’s House so work can be done. Lastly, are there any conditions Rep xxxx will work with Democrats on the process of electing a new speaker?”
Fox News is now being criticized for the alleged attempt to influence the House vote and get the candidate the former president has endorsed elected to speaker.
“So at the lowbrow entertainment network that paid a $787.5 million settlement for parroting lies crafted to overturn the Constitution, producers openly campaign in support of a coup-plotting legislator’s bid for the insurrectionist party’s leadership,” posted lawyer and frequent Trump critic George Conway. “How deeply runs the rot.”
According to reporting from the New York Times Tuesday morning, Jordan had picked up some votes over the weekend, winning over several of his biggest opponents.
Several mainstream Republicans who had said they could not countenance a vote for Jordan, the hard-line co-founder of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, a.k.a. the Dixie Caucus, fell into line after a pressure campaign by his right-wing allies and a series of one-on-one calls with Jordon.
They’re reversals suggested that Jordan could be within striking distance of the 217 votes he needs in an expected vote scheduled for noon on Tuesday.
“The role of the speaker is to bring all Republicans together. That’s what I intend to do,” Jordan said in a letter sent to his Republican colleagues on Monday. Jordan acknowledged the deep divisions in the party and said he would give more lawmakers input into the House agenda.
“We will make sure there are more Republican voices involved in our major decisions beyond the Five Families,” he wrote, using shorthand for the various factions in their ranks, also a reference to warring Mafia families.
People close to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee said the number of Republican holdouts had shrunk from around 50 to around 10. That is still enough to block his election, but he planned to press ahead anyway, counting on his remaining opposition to cave under pressure on the House floor.
A reporter for The Hill newspaper on C-SPAN Tuesday morning said the number had shrunk to 6 hard nos.
Leaving a two-hour meeting of House Republicans on Monday night at the Capitol, Jordan indicated he would force a series of floor votes on Tuesday until Republicans choose a speaker.
“We need to get a speaker tomorrow,” he said. “The American people deserve to have their Congress, their House of Representatives working. And you can’t have that happen without a speaker, so we need to do that. Plus, we need to be helping our best friend and closest ally, Israel.”
Should Jordan, 59, become speaker, “it would cap an extraordinary rise in Congress that propelled him from a right-wing rebel on the fringes of his party to the post that is second in line to the presidency,” the Times reports. “His ascent would be the clearest indicator yet of how far House Republicans have moved to the right during … Jordan’s 16 years in the chamber. It would also show how strong a grip former President Donald J. Trump, who counts Mr. Jordan among his closest allies, has on the party.”
The downfalls of McCarthy and Scalise left many mainstream Republicans bitter that the will of a majority in their ranks had not been honored. Several argued that elevating Jordan would reward “bad behavior.”
In his conversations with holdouts, Jordan said he listened to “frustrations about the treatment of Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise and the events of the past month.”
Several members spoke against Jordan’s candidacy during the closed-door meeting on Monday night in the basement of the Capitol.
Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania proposed giving Representative Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina — the temporary speaker whose role is primarily to hold an election for a speaker — more power to carry out the chamber’s work for the next month until the conflict could be resolved.
“When you go outside the rules of your own conference because you didn’t get your way, I think that is truly sad,” Kelly said, using a profanity to describe the tactics Jordan’s supporters used to undermine Scalise’s victory. “That is a real indictment of who you are.”
Amy Kremer, a political activist who also leads Women for America First, which organized a “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, posted a hit list of 12 members on Friday. She listed their office phone numbers and urged her followers to call them and tell them to support Jordan. The list included Representatives Ann Wagner of Missouri, Mike Rogers of Alabama and Carlos Gimenez of Florida, all of whom had publicly stated their opposition to Jordan.
By Monday morning, two of the three had declared their support for him.
Wagner, a supporter of Scalise, had called Jordan’s candidacy a “nonstarter” and accused him of behaving classlessly after his loss to Scalise. But on Monday, she said Jordan had won her over.
“Throughout my time in Congress, I have always been a team player and supported our Republican nominees out of conference,” Wagner said in a statement. “Jim Jordan and I spoke at length again this morning, and he has allayed my concerns about keeping the government open with conservative funding, the need for strong border security, our need for consistent international support in times of war and unrest, as well as the need for stronger protections against the scourge of human trafficking and child exploitation.”
Rogers, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he had “two cordial, thoughtful and productive conversations” with Jordan, and received assurances about carrying out the functioning of government and funding of the military.
Jordan also picked up support from Ken Calvert of California, the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, who said he had spoken with Jordan “about how we must get the House back on a path to achieve our national security and appropriations goals.”
Another initial holdout, Vern Buchanan of Florida, said he remained “deeply frustrated” but would vote for Jordan based on the need to have a functioning House.
“I believe the future and immediate well-being and security of our country is too important and the need for Republicans to move forward united is greater than ever,” Buchanan said.
Still, there were some members of Congress who were unmoved.
Gimenez said he would continue to support McCarthy and refuse to give in to the hard-right rebels who had ousted him.
“Last week, eight colleagues joined all the socialist Democrats to carry-out a coup against our duly-elected Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy,” Gimenez wrote on the social media site X. “These 8 lit the fuse & every Democrat in Congress provided the gunpowder to overthrow the will of 96% of Republicans in Congress who voted to retain Speaker McCarthy. I will not partake in this despicable coup. Speaker McCarthy should have never been removed to begin with.”
The Jordon coalition may keep forcing votes to see if they can find converts. Another vote could have come Tuesday night, but it was called off at least until Wednesday.
Ad 1: A second vote on Wednesday also failed, with Jordon getting even fewer votes, 199 to Jeffries’ 212 with 22 voting for others.
NYT graphic: NAJ screen shot
Related Coverage
House Republicans Choose Chaos and Gridlock with Jim Jordon
House Votes To Remove McCarthy as Speaker as Dixie Caucus Creates Chaos in U.S. Government
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