Jim Jordan still facing at least "10 to 20" holdouts as speaker vote looms, Republicans say
Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, still faces an uphill climb to the House speakership, with at least 10 to 20 Republican members who oppose his nomination, CBS News has learned, based on background conversations over the weekend with six key House Republicans and more than a dozen sources familiar with the deliberations.
"At least 10 to 20," one of the House Republicans told CBS News on Sunday, while another added that that Jordan's support has grown incrementally in recent days but remains soft.
While Jordan's confidants remain optimistic that he can get to the necessary 217 votes Tuesday, when the House is scheduled to bring a vote to the floor, several who are more critical of Jordan privately insisted this weekend that at about a dozen Republicans remain unwilling to support him, due to their frustrations over how Rep. Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana, was treated during his speaker bid and their simmering anger over the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. They also are wary of whether Jordan can handle the intensity of the challenges facing Congress in the coming months.
As one of those partisan grievance issues, I’m terrified of that possibility
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that, but I wouldn't be too worried.
First, he's going to be focused on aid to Ukraine and Israel. And while the party's stance on aid to those countries may be an issue in and of itself, that problem isn't unique to Jim Jordan, and we'd have the same issues regardless of who is speaker right now.
Then he's got the debt ceiling thing to figure out. Again, there's plenty of fuckery to be had, but that would be the case regardless of who is speaker.
And then after that, it's going to be full-blown "weaponization of government" hearings, Biden's so-called "impeachment", doing everything (not actually) in his power to shut down Trump's criminal trials, and then running his own re-election campaign.
This is all why I say they won't have any time to do any real damage. Somewhat ironically, the only real reason they won't be able to do much real damage is because he'll be too busy focusing on "problems" of their own creation: Support for Israel and Ukraine, the debt ceiling, "Weaponization of Government", Biden's "impeachment, and their bending the knee to Trump are all "crises" 100% invented by the GOP. If they weren't going to be so tied up solving stupid problems of their own creation, then I'd be more concerned.