Trump backs Jim Jordan to succeed McCarthy as House speaker

A man in a blue dress shirt, yellow tie and no jacket gestures as he speaks at a lectern

By JILL COLVIN and FARNOUSH AMIRI

Associated Press

Oct. 6, 2023 4:05 AM PT

WASHINGTON — Former President Trump is officially backing Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the pugnacious House Judiciary Committee chair and longtime Trump defender, to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.

“Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C., representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site early Friday. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”

Just hours earlier, Texas’ Rep. Troy Nehls said Trump had decided to back Jordan’s bid, even as Trump said he’d be open to serving as interim speaker himself if Republicans couldn’t settle on a successor to McCarthy.

Trump, who leads in polls for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has used the leadership vacuum on Capitol Hill to demonstrate his control over the party. House Republicans are deeply fractured, and some have asked him to lead them — a seemingly fanciful suggestion that he promoted after inflaming the divisions that forced out McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) as speaker.

Trump had told people that he preferred Jordan for the post, according to two Republicans close to the situation who were granted anonymity to discuss it. But it was unclear whether he intended to announce it before Nehls’ post late Thursday on X, formerly Twitter, which read: “Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race. He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party.”

In an interview later with the Associated Press, Nehls, who had been encouraging Trump seek the post himself, said the ex-president instead wanted Jordan.

“After him thinking about it ... he said he really is in favor of getting behind Jim Jordan,” Nehls said. “He believes Jim Jordan is right for the job.”

Jordan is one of two leading candidates maneuvering for the speakership, along with Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana. It’s unclear whether Trump’s endorsement will push Scalise out of the race, or if either can win enough support from the GOP caucus’ far-right and moderate factions.

Nehls said that if no candidate finds enough support, he would once again turn to Trump.

“Our conference is divided. Our country is broken. I don’t know who can get” enough votes, he said.

Trump plans to visit Capitol Hill next week ahead of a speakership vote that could happen as soon as Wednesday, according to three people familiar with the planning who spoke on condition of anonymity before an official announcement. Trump confirmed the plans to Fox News Digital, saying he would travel Tuesday to meet with Republicans.

It would be Trump’s first trip to the Capitol since he left office and since his supporters attacked the building on Jan. 6, 2021, in a bid to halt the transfer of power to Joe Biden. Trump has been indicted in both Washington, D.C., and Georgia over his efforts to overturn his loss in the election.

Nehls, however, said it was unlikely Trump would make the trip now that he has endorsed Jordan.

Jordan is one of Trump’s biggest champions on the Hill, and has been leading
investigations into prosecutors who have charged the former president. He was also among the Republicans who worked with Trump to overturn his defeat.

Scalise has also worked closely with Trump over the years.

One of the people familiar with the planning had said earlier Thursday that if Trump did visit, it would be to talk with Republican lawmakers, not to pitch himself for the speakership.

Still, Trump continued to stoke speculation, telling Fox News Digital on Thursday that he would agree to be speaker for 30 to 90 days if another candidate didn’t have the votes to win.

“I have been asked to speak as a unifier because I have so many friends in Congress,” he said. “If they don’t get the vote, they have asked me if I would consider taking the speakership until they get somebody longer term, because I am running for president.”

Earlier in the day, he said on social media that he’d “help with the Speaker of the House selection process, short term, until the final selection of a GREAT REPUBLICAN SPEAKER is made — A Speaker who will help a new, but highly experienced President, ME, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The Republican conference is filled with members who are generally supportive of Trump, but whether they’d back him to be speaker is unclear. The speaker effectively runs the Capitol and deals with hundreds of lawmakers — and the job requires an attention to the arcane details of legislating that Trump has shown little interest in.

While he is dominating his GOP presidential rivals in polls, Trump is still traveling to early primary states to campaign, and has been spending much of his time focused on the four criminal indictments and several civil cases he is facing.

There is no requirement a person be a House member to serve as speaker, but every one of the 55 speakers elected has been a member.

Trump helped McCarthy win the speakership in January after 15 rounds of voting. But he exhorted Republicans to impeach Biden and to reject deals that McCarthy negotiated. Last month, he urged the right flank to support a government shutdown if Republicans did not win deep spending cuts, declaring on social media that the GOP “lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be BLAMED for the Budget Shutdown. Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed, in this case, Crooked (as Hell!) Joe Biden!”

McCarthy ultimately moved to keep the government open for 45 days without the cuts demanded by hard-right conservatives. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and longtime Trump ally, cited that decision as reason to move to depose the speaker.

Among those who had pushed Trump for speaker was Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump ally who didn’t vote to remove McCarthy. She posted on X that she believed “he would take the job.”

Nehls, the Texas Republican who was among the first to promote Trump for the job, said before his Thursday evening conservation with Trump that he’d been contacted “by multiple Members of Congress willing to support and offer nomination speeches for Donald J. Trump to be Speaker of the House.”

“Next week,” he wrote on X, “is going to be HUGE.”