Well, House Republicans should have been careful what they wished for. With Kevin McCarthy vacated, largely thanks to Matt Gaetz (with a possible assist from Donald Trump), Republicans are now in complete and utter disarray. McCarthy’s replacement will need to garner 217 votes to be confirmed. But on Monday, after a private conference meeting on who that might be, it quickly became clear that none of McCarthy’s possible successors would pass the muster. Which, believe it or not, could put McCarthy right back where he started.
One reason for this is geopolitics. On Saturday morning, Americans woke up to news of an invasion by Hamas and subsequent carnage in Israel and Gaza—the deadliest in many decades. Israel is, of course, America’s closest ally in the region. And that’s one of the very few things that both parties seem to agree on. But the governing body that controls the purse, i.e., the House of Representatives, is currently without a leader and is instead being governed by Speaker pro tempore named Patrick McHenry, who is most famous for not standing on a plastic crate and wearing an adorable bow tie. Does McHenry have the same powers that an elected Speaker does? Probably not, but no one really knows for sure because the House hasn’t filed a motion to vacate since 1910 and no Speaker, before McCarthy, ever got removed in a floor vote.
It also doesn’t help that support for McCarthy’s reinstallment may be picking up. Representatives John Duarte and Carlos Gimenez have, against all logic, said they will only entertain a McCarthy Speakership, according to Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman. And the former Speaker, for his part, has promised to “allow the conference to make any decision” on his replacement—even if that means reclaiming the gavel, which presents a big turd to the punch bowl for the two front-runners. One of those front-runners is the jacketless Jim Jordan, a man whose brainless rage fueled the national embarrassment known as the Benghazi probes and is now fixated on so-called “weaponization” of government. Republican strategist Rick Wilson described him to me on my podcast, Fast Politics, as looking like he has “rabies,” which is indelicate, sure, but may explain why he’s so removed from reality. In any case, Jordan does not have the polish of a Paul Ryan, or even the likes of McCarthy or Trump. And that’s a problem, because one of the biggest responsibilities of being Speaker is fundraising; it’s hard to imagine high-net-worth Republican donors having the same goodwill with Jordan as they did with his slightly more sophisticated predecessor.
But beyond that, Jordan would need the 18 vulnerable blue-state representatives to vote for him. That is, members like Mike Lawler, who represents New York’s 17th, a D-plus-three congressional district that he won by less than 2,000 votes. And they might not be so inclined to support Jordan considering his distinguished past of election denial, or his involvement in controversies like the Ohio State University sexual abuse scandal. Putting Jordan in the job could cross the Rubicon way past the point where the GOP could even pretend to be genteel.
The other front-runner is Majority Leader Steve Scalise who allegedly once called himself “David Duke without the baggage.” He is number two in the Republican congressional leadership and seems, at least on the face of it, way less dramatic and crazy than Jordan. (Though Scalise, too, is an election-denier.) But while seeming less crazy may help Republicans in their quixotic quest to keep the House, it won’t appeal to the burn-it-all-down caucus, whose support is unfortunately vital in the race.
Which could leave Republicans stuck with McCarthy—a guy who presumably considers himself to be a moderate but for sure as hell didn’t act like one during his nine-month Speakership. He launched a Biden impeachment inquiry without a House floor vote, despite promising otherwise; tried to cut government spending by up to 30%; and empowered both Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene by putting her on Homeland Security and white nationalist adjacent dentist Paul Gosar by putting him on House Oversight. Sure, maybe McCarthy speaks in less extreme terms than Jordan, but his political philosophy appears driven by a fearful subservience to the MAGA wing.
For Democrats, it might actually be better politically to have a Speaker who is unapologetically MAGA, presenting a clear contrast. Of course, a Jim Jordan Speakership would be a nightmare for democracy, for political discourse, for many of the values that I hold dear. But Jordan winning 217 votes would make clear that there are zero moderates left in the Republican caucus, that literally every member of the house is a right-wing zealot.
Things are, in other words, looking pretty bleak. As the carnage in the Middle East dominates the news cycle—and the House’s fiscal responsibilities come into immense focus—it’s unclear how the party will escape from that sand trap, whether it’s by electing a hard-line MAGA replacement who endangers their control of the House or by reelecting McCarthy, who could very well be vacated once more. What is certain amid all the bickering, backstabbing, and nail-biting is that the only member of Congress who is presumably happy about this House of horrors is the Gaetz of Hell.