2023-10-20 21:22:30
Republicans abandoned Jim Jordan’s candidacy for speaker of the House of Representatives on Friday, making the decision in a closed session following the hardline ally of Donald Trump failed to win in the third round.
“We asked them the question, they made a different decision,” Mr. Jordan later said of his colleagues.
Also chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he said House Republicans must now come together and “determine who will be [le] president “.
The gridlock in the House of Representatives is deepening into a full-blown crisis, with Republicans having no realistic plan to unite the party’s fractured majority, elect a new president, and return to work in the paralyzed Congress. since hardliners ousted Kevin McCarthy as speaker earlier this month.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise said they were going to “come back and do it once more” on Monday.
Dissensions
Angry and frustrated, the Republicans, who saw their majority control descend into chaos, left the private session blaming each other for the divisions they had created.
The next steps are very uncertain as lawmakers begin to propose new ideas for a possible president. But it appears that no one can currently achieve a majority in the Republican Party.
“We are in a very bad situation right now,” Mr. McCarthy said earlier.
In a vote Friday morning, Mr. Jordan’s third try, his candidacy was rejected by 25 of his Republican colleagues. A result worse than what he had experienced earlier in the week, and far from the necessary majority.
With a 221-212 Republican majority in the House, any candidate can only lose a few detractors. It appears that no party member can currently secure a clear majority, or 217 votes, to become president.
Many saw the extremism of Mr. Jordan, a founding member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, as disqualifying him for the House speakership, a central seat of American power.
“One thing I cannot tolerate or stand for is a bully,” Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Republican of Iowa, said in a statement. She voted once morest Mr Jordan in the second round and said she had received “credible death threats”.
Biden’s aid plan
It is in this context of blockage in the House and political chaos that Joe Biden requested on Friday a budgetary increase of 105 billion dollars in particular to support Ukraine and Israel, allies of the United States involved in major international crises, and respond to the challenges posed by immigration at the country’s southern border.
Out of the ordinary, an idea to give the acting Speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry, more powers for the next few months to at least bring the House back into session and conduct crucial business was quickly rejected by Mr. Jordan’s ultraconservative allies.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries reiterated that his party is “ready, willing and able” to partner with more traditional Republicans on the path to reopening the House. Especially since Congress is invited to examine President Joe Biden’s aid program for, among others, Israel, Ukraine and the management of the border between the United States and Mexico.
The tone rose during a closed-door meeting Thursday, with Republican factions blaming each other for plunging their majority into chaos, lawmakers reported.
Elevating Patrick McHenry to a broader role as Speaker of the House might be a possible way out of the crisis, but it would not be as politically simple as it seems.
Republicans are reluctant to partner with Democrats in a bipartisan manner on this deal, and it is highly unlikely that Republicans might agree to give Mr. McHenry more powers on their own, since this approach displeases their party supporters. the hard line.
Moreover, Patrick McHenry himself rejected attempts to occupy this position more permanently.
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