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Washington: The battle to become the new US House Speaker has intensified after former president Donald Trump gave his high-profile endorsement to a longstanding ally linked to the 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Days after Congress was plunged into chaos following the historic ousting of Kevin McCarthy, Trump intervened with a midnight post backing Congressman Jim Jordan, a conservative warrior who spoke to Trump at length on the morning of the January 6 attack and later objected to the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.
Representative Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbour, Maryland, in March.Credit: Bloomberg
“Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington DC,” said Trump, who had toyed with the idea of visiting the Capitol next week but has reportedly been talked out of the move.
Hours later, the former president sent out a fundraising email declaring: “I will need a strong Speaker of the House who I can trust to help me when I return to the White House on January 20, 2025 as your next President.”
Trump’s endorsement has shaken up what was already going to be a heated race between Jordan and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the second-highest ranking person in the chamber and one of the Republicans’ most prolific fundraisers.
Kevin McCarthy, then the House Republican leader, confers with Minority Whip Steve Scalise, left, before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks in December.Credit: AP
As the head of the House Judiciary Committee, Jordan is currently overseeing the Republican-led impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings.
He is also the co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, whose current members were largely responsible for McCarthy’s demise, and has made it clear he does not support providing ongoing aid to Ukraine for its war against Russia.
Jordan also came under fire last year for defying a subpoena to co-operate with the January 6 select committee investigation into the US Capitol riots.
The subpoena was issued after phone records showed the Ohio Congressman spoke at length to Trump on the morning of the attack, and had also forwarded a text message to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows with details of a plan to pressure Mike Pence, then vice president, to block Biden’s victory.
In the aftermath of the riots, Jordan was one of the many Republicans who objected to the certification of the election results and, four days later, Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a private ceremony at the White House.
Liz Cheney speaks as the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol holds a hearing in Washington.Credit: AP
“Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives,” former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who sat on the January 6 committee, said at an event at the University of Minnesota earlier this week.
“Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election.”
Trump’s endorsement comes days before Republicans regroup in Washington on Tuesday after the unprecedented right-wing mutiny that saw McCarthy become the first speaker in US history to be ousted by a vote in the chamber.
The move exacerbated a civil war within the GOP and paralysed Congress at a time when it only has a few weeks before the government is expected to run out of money, unless all parties can work together to avoid a shutdown in mid-November.
If such a shutdown were to occur, millions of federal workers and troops would miss out on pay or end up furloughed, airports would face major travel delays, and access to services and food assistance would be hindered.
Speaking at the White House as he touted strong new job numbers on Friday, Biden urged Republicans not to “put us back in a crisis mode again”.
“We have only 40 days for Congress to get back to work, and I’m saying to House Republicans who are on recess now to fund the government, avoid a shutdown, and protect the tremendous gains American workers have made over the past two and a half years,” he said.
Asked if he would be willing to work with Jordan if he replaced McCarthy as speaker, Biden smiled and paused for a moment, before replying: “With some people, I imagine it’s going to be easier to work with than others, but whoever the Speaker is, I’m going to try to work with them.”
Both Jordan and Scalise have been busy rallying support from their colleagues as Tuesday’s vote looms. While Jordan has strong support from the Make America Great Again wing of the party, success will largely come down to moderate Republicans who come from districts that Biden won at the last election.
Scalise is also regarded as a strong candidate whose priorities include cutting spending and fixing the crisis at the US-Mexico border. The Louisiana Republican made headlines in 2017 when he was shot when a lone gunman who was said to be distraught over Trump’s election opened fire on Republicans during a congressional baseball game in Washington.
More recently, he has undergone treatment for a form of blood cancer but has been cleared by his doctors to continue to working. Asked about the ructions within the GOP, he acknowledged members were angry and frustrated, but added: “We’ve got to work through that.”
“We started this year knowing, with a small majority, everything we did was going to be a challenge,” Scalise told Fox and Friends on Friday morning. “But we’ve got to get back together and work through some of these problems.”
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