US Politics

Death threats. Screaming matches behind closed doors. A futile cycle of votes that put internecine warfare on full public display. The Republican party this week sank into new depths of disarray and dysfunction – with no remedy in sight.Never before has America gone so long without a speaker of the House of Representatives and, critics say, not for a very long time has a major party appeared so broken. It has left a branch of the US government leaderless at an extraordinary moment of peril in the Middle East and Ukraine.“When you look at the damage to the party’s image, its reputation, its ability to do anything substantive or serious, this is a week of unmitigated disaster for the Republican party,” said Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, a pro-democracy and anti-Trump group.The latest setback came on Friday when Jim Jordan, a rightwing Ohio congressman endorsed by former president Donald Trump, lost a third vote to become speaker and was then unceremoniously dumped by Republicans as their nominee. The majority leader, Steve Scalise, said they were going to “come back and start over” on Monday.This followed a week of turmoil remarkable even by the fractious standards of the Trump era, with ideological disagreements merging with personal vendettas in a combustible mix. After Kevin McCarthy was ousted on 3 October and Scalise failed to garner enough backing, Jordan, a bare knuckle rightwinger and election denier, had made an unlikely effort to unite the party.In the first floor vote on Tuesday, the House Republican conference chair, Elise Stefanik, formally nominated Jordan and aimed high by quoting the Bible (Esther 4:14) to claim that Jordan would be America’s speaker “for such a time as this”. But 20 Republicans holdouts denied him the gavel.A day later, Jordan tried again but this time 22 Republicans opposed him. There was a sense of absurdity as some called out alternative names such as John Boehner, a former speaker who quit eight years ago.Meanwhile it emerged that Jordan’s allies in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement had deployed a hardball pressure campaign. Every member who voted against him said they had received a barrage of angry phone calls and messages.Congressman Don Bacon said he received death threats and his wife slept with a loaded gun near her bedside one night. Others said their families had been threatened – indicative of dangerously violent undercurrents in American politics that Trump’s recent rhetoric has only encouraged.But the intimidation tactics had the opposite effect of that intended by hardening the resolve of the holdouts. Congressman Drew Ferguson said the death threats against his family were “unacceptable, unforgivable and will never be tolerated”. Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks added: “One thing I cannot stomach or support is a bully.”On Thursday, tragedy turned to farce. Jordan agreed to suspend his campaign in favor of a resolution that would temporarily expand the powers of the acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, to get the House moving again. But that went down like a lead balloon at a closed-door meeting of Republicans where tempers flared.McCarthy yelled at Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman behind his ousting, when Gaetz tried to seize a microphone. The former speaker explained to reporters later: “I told him to sit down, and he sat down. I think the entire conference screamed at him. Listen, the whole country, I think, would scream at Matt Gaetz right now.”After the meeting, Jordan announced that the McHenry plan would be scrapped and that he would fight on after all. “I’m still running for speaker,” he declared. “I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.” But on Friday the opposition grew to 25 Republicans, an election result that not even Jordan could deny.Soon after he lost the party nomination in a secret ballot, putting Republicans back to square one. Critics saw it as the awful spectacle of a party – held together by the glue of grievance, “owning the libs” and a cult of personality – coming apart at the seams.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “We are seeing the inevitable outcome of years of neglect, years of lack of leadership, years of lack of courage culminate with what is a completely ungovernable and dysfunctional Republican party. The fact that there isn’t a single Republican right now who can get 217 votes is illustrative of deep schisms within the party and these deep wounds that there is no healing from.”Bardella, a former spokesperson and senior adviser for Republicans on the House oversight committee, added: “Time and again the bad actors in the Republican party have been rewarded for their bad behavior. They get rewarded with television time. They get rewarded with raising millions of dollars in contributions.“They get rewarded with plum committee assignments. Whether it’s Jordan or a Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who time and again we’re told represent the fringe of the party, they continue to be elevated and empowered by the leadership that’s in charge.”Now ending its third week without a leader, the House cannot act on a $106bn national security package unveiled by Joe Biden on Friday that would bolster US border security and send aid to Israel and Ukraine. Congress also faces a 17 November deadline to pass funding to keep the government open.Jeffries has said Democrats are “ready, willing and able” to partner with centrist Republicans on a path to reopen the House. In the meantime the chaos should, in theory, present a campaign gift to Democrats in next year’s elections, contrasting Biden’s steady wartime leadership with a party at war with itself.Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: “It’s a slow drip. People are still going to work and living their lives so they’re not worried about it. But independent voters who have been uncomfortable with the very right wing of the Republican party, whether it’s Trump or anybody else, will get more uncomfortable because this is threatening the stability of the federal government to function at all.“It’s one thing to be chaotic if you’re Trump – but it’s another to not be able to pass any legislation at all.” More

Adam Frisch is in his second congressional campaign, crossing and re-crossing Colorado’s third US House district, a space bigger than Pennsylvania. Thirteen months out from election day, time is one thing he does not lack. But Frisch has a unique way of counting it anyway: before and after Beetlejuice.“Before Beetlejuice,” the Democrat says, of polling in his Republican-leaning district, “we were up by two points, Trump was up five.”After Beetlejuice, the thinking goes, Frisch’s position may well improve further.Frisch, 56 and a former banker who now lives in Aspen, is the Democratic candidate to challenge Lauren Boebert next year. Boebert, a former restaurant owner and proud grandmother at 36, is the far-right Republican who won the seat in 2020 and has proven relentlessly controversial since – so much so that last year, even in a conservative district, she survived Frisch’s first challenge by the skin of her teeth.Boebert won after a recount, by just 546 votes, then went back to Washington DC to stoke the usual fires.But last month a bigger blaze flared up, when the congresswoman was shown to have behaved outrageously during a performance of the musical Beetlejuice in Denver.On security footage, Boebert sang and danced, took selfies, vaped and even appeared to grope her date as he fondled her in return. Both were ejected. For once, Boebert voiced something close to contrition. But to Frisch, the episode was just further proof that Boebert is there to be beaten.“We’re resonating with a lot of people,” he said, by phone, during another day of meeting and greeting.“In February of 22, when I first launched, there were two themes I started to work on. The Republicans laughed at me, the Democrats laughed at me, the media and the donor class laughed. But the themes are the people want the circus to stop, and they want someone to focus on the district.“And every day since then, [Boebert] has just been one of the national leaders of the circus. And obviously, it’s just gotten worse and worse … it’s just a mess and people are sick and tired.”Boebert is not the only member of Congress Frisch identifies as a purveyor of what the Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips – a high-school friend of Frisch – calls “angertainment”: lucrative playing of the partisan angles in Congress, on social media and on network TV.“When I looked at the data a couple of years ago,” Frisch says, “I saw that Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs are all kind of a part of that Republican chaos crowd, and I would put [Ilhan] Omar and [Rashida] Tlaib [leftwing Democrats from Minnesota and Michigan] on the other side.“They all have safe seats. A billion dollars against them is not going to change the outcome. But I noticed that in 2020, Boebert only won by five points … and so we realised that of all these ‘brand name’ representatives, Lauren Boebert is probably the only person that has any chance and a good chance now of losing.“I thought, ‘This could turn into a big deal.’ And obviously, it’s turned into a big deal.”Frisch has attracted national attention. But the same pre-Beetlejuice poll that put him up 50-48 also said 40% of district voters felt they did not “know” him.Therefore, while Boebert plays to the cameras in Washington – Frisch hits her for having a “mini television studio in her office, where there are supposed to be benches for constituents to sit before they actually have a chance to talk to the congresswoman” – her opponent continues to tour the battleground.“The issues that we face here are a lot more in common with rural Florida, rural Pennsylvania, than with Denver and Boulder and Colorado Springs,” he says. “And I’m just very focused on how small-town America and rural America and working-class America, especially like in Pueblo, which is a very blue-collar working-class town in the district, how that whole group has kind of been left behind. And I know it’s pretty easy to call it a rural-urban divide, but it’s there. I feel it.“I went in to this race eyes wide open. But the one true surprise was, regardless of political affiliation, regardless of political views, left, right or center, everyone in CD3 is frustrated with kind of the urban-centric conversation that is happening at the state level and a little bit at the national level … there is this resentment about how urban-centric the Democratic party has become.”Colorado district three tilts conservative but Frisch sees a “very libertarian” conservatism which he, an aspirant “Blue Dog” or “Problem Solvers” moderate in Congress, can work with.“It’s more of a ‘you be you’ party. They don’t want to really get involved with who you want to love, who you want to marry. They don’t want to get involved in who should be in a hospital room talking about reproductive rights, abortion. You know, ranchers and farmers are incredibly pragmatic. I’ve yet to meet a rancher or a farmer that’s un-pragmatic, because they won’t be in business for longer than eight days if they are.”Boebert has been called many things but pragmatic is rarely one. Frisch attributes her previous wins to opportunism and a libertarianism increasingly not enough for voters turned off by her antics. He also hopes his second attempt to eject Boebert from Congress will capture national attention not just for the drama it might provide.“I want to spend a lot more time trying to figure out how a lot more districts can have competitive races,” Frisch says, “because monopolies are bad in business and they’re bad in politics. I think 85% or 80% of the districts, they’re basically cooked in the primary. And to me, our primary system is ground zero for the dysfunctionality, the yelling and the screaming that’s going on around our country.” More

Jim Jordan lost a secret ballot held by House Republicans which removes him as speaker designate, said the Republican Florida representative Kat Cammack.Steve Scalise of Louisiana said that Republicans will start over on Monday.Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman reports that the vote margin was large, according to sources familiar with the vote.The Supreme Court on Friday kept a Missouri law on hold that bars police from enforcing federal gun laws, rejecting an emergency appeal from the state.The Associated Press reports:The 2019 law was ruled unconstitutional by a district judge but allowed to remain in effect. A federal appeals court then blocked enforcement while the state appeals the district court ruling.Missouri had wanted the law to be in effect while the court fight plays out.Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to side with Missouri on Friday.The law would impose a fine of $50,000 on an officer who knowingly enforces federal gun laws that don’t match up with state restrictions.Federal laws without similar Missouri laws include registration and tracking requirements and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders.The court expanded gun rights in a 2022 decision authored by Thomas. It is hearing arguments next month in the first case stemming from last year’s ruling. An appeals court invalidated a federal law that aims to keep guns away from people facing domestic violence restraining orders.Long-shot Republican presidential candidate Perry Johnson has announced his decision to suspend his presidential campaign.On Friday, the Michigan businessman released a statement, saying, “With no oppurtunity to share my vision on the debate stage, I have decided at this time, suspending my campaign is the right thing to do.”Johnson criticized the Republican National Committee and its “corrupt leaders” with “authoritarian powers.”“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the people should decide the next president of the United States, not the head of the RNC and her cronies,” he added.Johnson said that he is only suspending his campaign, rather than withdrawing entirely and plans to keep a small political team on staff “in the event the dynamics of the race change.”Tennessee’s Republican representative Mark Green is not runnning for speaker, Green’s office told Punchbowl News.With Jim Jordan out of the speaker race, here is an explainer by the Guardian’s Sam Levine on why he lost and what happens next:Why did Republicans oppose Jordan?Several of the members who are opposed to Jordan are members of the House appropriations committee, who are reportedly opposed to the way Jordan has embraced a hard line on spending cuts and shutting down the government.There is also reportedly bad blood over the way Jordan and his allies treated Steve Scalise. Scalise previously beat Jordan to win the conference’s nomination to be speaker, but withdrew his bid after it became clear he couldn’t get enough votes to win in the House. Some Scalise allies think Jordan didn’t do enough to rally Republicans around Scalise.What happens next?No one knows. Even as it was clear that Jordan had no clear path to becoming the speaker, no Republican emerged to seriously challenge him. Republicans currently have a Sunday noon deadline to announce their candidacy ahead of another round of speakership talks.For the full explainer, click here:Mike Pence has called on House Republicans to “decide what team you want to be on” as Republicans revert back to square one following their inability to decide on a speaker.Speaking on SiriusXM, the presidential candidate said:
“Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined eight Republicans partnering with every Democrat in Congress to throw out a Republican speaker of the House. All roads lead back to the eight members of what I call the chaos caucus who set all this into motion.”
“With everything that’s happening in the world … the American people are looking to Republicans in the Congress to stop fighting with each other and start fighting for them.”
House Republicans have set Sunday 12pm as the deadline to file as a speaker candidate.A candidate forum for the speaker will be held on Monday at 6.30pm and a secret ballot leadership election will be held on Tuesday at 9am.It remains unclear when a floor vote for speaker will be.Texas’s Republican representative Chip Roy said that it was a “mistake for the Republican conference to just walk away from arguably the most popular Republican in the Republican party.”Speaking to CNN’s Manu Raju, Roy said, “We shouldn’t have done that,” adding, “I think having the American people be able to see how we are wrestling with the tough decisions and what we’re trying to do, and doing it with intensity and doing it because we care about this country.”Former speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is throwing his weight behind GOP whip Tom Emmer’s bid to replace him, Punchbowl News reports:It’s a boost for Emmer, but not necessarily a decisive one. McCarthy also supported Jim Jordan, and look how that turned out. Meanwhile, Punchbowl reports that Emmer is among a fairly sizable group of Republicans running for the House speaker post, or considering it:They’ll be having a busy weekend.The judge overseeing Donald Trump and his family members’ civil fraud trial in New York City fined the former president $5,000 for a post he determined violated a gag order, but did not order him to jail – yet.Here’s more on that, from the Associated Press:
Judge Arthur Engoron avoided holding Trump in contempt, for now, but reserved the right to do so – and possibly even put him in jail – if he continued to violate a gag order barring parties in the case from personal attacks on court staff.
Engoron said in a written ruling that he is “way beyond the ‘warning’ stage” but decided on a nominal fine because Trump’s lawyers said the website’s retention of the post was inadvertent and was a “first-time violation”.
Earlier, an incensed Engoron said the failure to delete the post from the website was a “blatant violation” of his 3 October order, which required Trump to delete the offending message.
Trump lawyer Christopher Kise blamed the “very large machine” of Trump’s presidential campaign for allowing his deleted social media post to remain on his website, calling it an unintentional oversight.
Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, wasn’t in court Friday. He’d returned to the trial Tuesday and Wednesday after attending the first three days in early October, but skipped the rest of the week.
Speaking of people who are running for office, Donald Trump has made it clear he won’t be at the third Republican primary debate in Miami on 8 November.But he will be in the city in his role as spoiler, hosting an open-air rally at the same time that his rivals for the party’s presidential nomination are taking the stage.Trump’s campaign announced Friday that the former president would be appearing at Ted Hendricks stadium in Hialeah, 10 miles from the Adrienne Arsht performing arts center in Miami where the Republican National Committee debate will take place.The former president is the runaway leader for the nomination, despite his worsening legal problems. He skipped the first debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in August, and last month’s second event in Simi Valley, California, although he still emerged as the most-talked-about candidate despite his absence.Trump has called for the RNC to cancel the Miami debate, arguing that he’s so far ahead of his challengers as to make it meaningless, and that a failure to do so would be an admission that “national Republicans are more concerned about helping Joe Biden”.Tom Emmer, a Minnesota congressman who is the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House, will run for speaker, Punchbowl News reports:Before Kevin McCarthy’s removal from the speaker’s post, the Washington Post reported that conservative hardliners were in favor of nominating him for the chamber’s top job.Jim Jordan started out the day by hinting that the House would have to stick around through the weekend to vote on his candidacy for speaker.Hours later, the GOP stripped him of the party’s nomination in a closed-door meeting. No more weekend votes for them.As CNN reports, the next phase of the speaker’s race will play out starting Monday with a candidates’ forum, but you can bet that Kevin Hern and other Republicans who throw their hat into the ring will spend this weekend campaigning within the party:Republican majority leader Steve Scalise, who was briefly the party’s nominee for speaker before withdrawing when he concluded he would not win majority support, will not run for the post again, Punchbowl News reports:Oklahoma’s Republican representative Kevin Hern has announced he will run for House speaker.Hern, the chair of the Republican study committee (the House’s largest caucus among Republicans), said:
I just voted for my good friend Jim Jordan to stay as our speaker designate, but the conference has determined that he will no longer hold that title. We just had two speaker designates go down. We must unify and do it fast.
I’ve spoken to every member of the conference over the last few weeks. We need a different type of leader who has a proven track record of success, which is why I’m running for speaker of the House.
Following the secret GOP ballot, Jim Jordan said on live TV, “I’m going to go back to work.”In reference to who the next speaker would be, Jordan said, “Let’s work out who that individual is,” and added, “It’s time to unite.”White House spokesperson Andrew Bates has commented on the latest House speaker vote, urging House Republicans to “end their chaotic infighting and their competitions to out-extreme one another.” “While Joe Biden fights to advance bipartisan legislation that will protect our national security interests – including in Israel and Ukraine – provide humanitarian assistance for innocent civilians in Gaza, deliver critical border funding, compete with China, and grow our economy, House Republicans are somehow still fighting with each other,” said Bates.He went on to call upon House Republicans to “join President Biden in working on urgent priorities for American families shared by both parties in Congress.”The former House speaker Kevin McCarthy said that Republicans will now “have to go back to the drawing board”.“I’m concerned where we go from here,” added McCarthy. More

Ilhan Omar, one of only two Muslim US representatives, says that she fears for her family’s safety after receiving an onslaught of threats for criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.The Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota opened up in a statement about the increase in Islamophobic remarks and threats she has received, including threats directed at her family. NBC News first reported on the statement, which was later shared with the Guardian.Omar said that she and other Muslim Americans have been negatively affected by a “dishonest smearing” that labels them as a threat for condemning Israel’s treatment of Palestine amid fighting in Gaza.She specifically called out rhetoric used by several far-right lawmakers that equates her and other representatives with terrorist supporters.“It directly endangered my life and that of my family, as well as subjected my staff to traumatic verbal abuse simply for doing their jobs,” Omar said in the statement, referring to the far-right rhetoric.“More importantly, it threatens the millions of American Muslims.”In one voicemail to Omar’s office, an anonymous caller said that an extremist group had been spying on the congresswoman and her children. The caller also claimed that they had obtained all of Omar’s addresses and “handed them out to rapists”, NBC News reported.Another message called Omar a “terrorist Muslim”.In a third voicemail shared to NBC News, a caller claimed to be part of a vigilante group and threatened to “rip your fucking rag off your head”, referring to Omar’s hijab.“I hope the Israelis kill every fucking one of you,” the caller said.“Since assuming office, two men have pleaded guilty to threatening to kill me,” Omar’s statement said. “This is very real. I fear for my children and have to speak to them about remaining vigilant because you just never know.”In a broader statement on fighting in Gaza, Omar denounced Hamas.But she and other progressive members of Congress who have been critical of Israel have faced criticism, particularly from far-right Republicans.Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, labeled her fellow US House member Rashida Tlaib a member of the “Hamas Caucus” and a “terrorist sympathizer” in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter.Tlaib is the only other Muslim representative in Congress.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionColorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert also called Omar a member of the “jihad squad”.Boebert, a Republican, has made Islamophobic remarks about Omar before, including suggesting that Omar was an explosive-carrying terrorist.“This toxic language and imagery has real-world consequences,” Omar said in a statement. “House Republican leaders stay silent as their party unleashes these toxic attacks and refuse to hold extremists in their ranks accountable.”US Capitol police officials and the House sergeant at arms briefed several representatives, including Omar and Tlaib, about potential threats last week.“I hope this culture of prejudice ends,” Omar’s statement said. “Hate speech from political leaders has no place in our government. I will continue to advocate for all Americans, promote understanding despite differences, and promote inclusivity.”Muslim and Palestinian Americans have expressed concern about the increase in harassment and threats many have received, with some comparing the amount to the days following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Religion News Service reported.“This is reminding me a bit of how it felt post-9/11,” the Palestinian activist and policy analyst Laila El-Haddad said to RNS.The latest fears follow the brutal killing of a six-year-old Palestinian boy Wadea Al-Fayoume in Illinois in what police have charged was a hate crime.Wadea’s family’s landlord broke into their apartment and stabbed the boy dozens of times on 14 October while allegedly shouting: “You Muslims must die!” More

Ever since Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as House speaker on 3 October, the Republican conference has been mired in chaos. Friday marked an escalation as that dysfunction as Jim Jordan, the far-right congressman from Ohio, lost his third vote on the House floor to be speaker and his status as the GOP nominee.Here’s a look at what transpired this week:How did we get here again?There are currently 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats in the US House (there are two vacancies), giving the GOP a very slim majority. That means that any Republican who wants to be speaker has to have the support of nearly all of the Republicans in the House, something that is increasingly harder since individual members need less institutional support than they did in the past because of politically uncompetitive districts and the ability to raise huge sums of money online.When McCarthy negotiated himself into the speakership earlier this year, one of his key concessions was allowing any House member to file a motion to vacate, or remove him from speaker. Representative Matt Gaetz, a far-right Republican from Florida, filed such a motion earlier this month and enough Republicans – eight in total – voted against McCarthy to oust him.That vacancy essentially brought the House to a standstill. The speaker runs the business of the House and controls the floor schedule and which bills come to the floor. Without one, the House cannot operate.After McCarthy’s ouster, Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Jordan entered the speaker’s race. Scalise won a private vote among the Republican conference, but withdrew his name from contention after it became clear he could not get enough votes.What happened with Jim Jordan this week?Jordan, a far-right Ohio Republican who co-founded the House Freedom Caucus, earned the nomination to be the conference’s next speaker on 13 October. He won the nomination with 124 of the House Republican conference’s 221 votes. In order to become speaker he needed to get 217 votes from all house members.Things went from bad to worse when Jordan went to the House floor for formal votes on his speakership. On Tuesday, 20 Republicans voted against him, putting him far below the threshold he needed to be speaker. Twenty-two Republicans voted against him in a second vote on Wednesday. Twenty-five Republicans opposed him in a third vote, putting him even further from the speakership.After the third failed vote, Republicans took a vote by secret ballot on whether Jordan should remain the nominee. He lost that vote handily, losing his status as the Republican nominee for speaker.New Republican candidates can now declare next week, when Republicans will start the process all over again.Why did Republicans oppose Jordan?Several of the members who are opposed to Jordan are members of the House appropriations committee, who are reportedly opposed to the way Jordan has embraced a hard line on spending cuts and shutting down the government.Members also reported receiving death threats and outside pressure to vote for Jordan, a position that has only hardened their opposition to him. “The last thing you want to do is try to intimidate or pressure me, because then I close out entirely,” Mario Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican who opposes Jordan, told reporters earlier this week.There is also reportedly bad blood over the way Jordan and his allies treated Steve Scalise. Scalise previously beat Jordan to win the conference’s nomination to be speaker, but withdrew his bid after it became clear he couldn’t get enough votes to win in the House. Some Scalise allies think Jordan didn’t do enough to rally Republicans around Scalise.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“He missed his moment of leadership when he failed Steve Scalise,” John Rutherford, a Florida congressman who voted against Jordan, said earlier this week.What happens next?No one knows. Even as it was clear that Jordan had no clear path to becoming the speaker, no Republican emerged to seriously challenge him. Republicans currently have a Sunday noon deadline to announce their candidacy ahead of another round of speakership talks.Who is Patrick McHenry and what is the speaker pro tempore?After Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as speaker, Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, became the speaker pro tempore. McCarthy chose McHenry to take on that role should the speakership ever be declared vacant.There has never been a similar situation, so it’s unclear exactly what the scope of McHenry’s power is. It has been widely understood to be extremely narrow so far, limited to the authority to oversee a vote for the next speaker. As Republicans stalled in picking a new speaker, there has been chatter about temporarily expanding McHenry’s power so that the House can conduct some limited business. The majority of the GOP conference seems opposed to that kind of action.Could Democrats cut a deal with Republicans on a new speaker?Democrats have all voted for their leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, in each of the speakership elections. Jeffries has said there have been “informal talks” with Republicans, but Democrats have been quiet about any negotiations. A pre-condition for any Democratic support for a speaker appears to be that they would allow any bipartisan bills come up for a vote. More

Jim Jordan of Ohio was forced out of the House speakership race on Friday after his Republican colleagues voted against his continued bid for the seat in a secret ballot after his third failed attempt to corral enough support to win the gavel.Jordan’s lost bid followed a contentious week on Capitol Hill, during which he and his allies attempted to cajole more moderate Republicans into backing Jordan.After his loss, Jordan told reporters he was “going to go back to work” and that it was “time to unite”.It is not clear who Republicans could elevate as a next nominee. There’s a deadline of Sunday at noon for candidates to announce interest in the speakership. The conference is expected to return on Monday evening to hear from candidates for the speakership, with voting set for Tuesday. By that time, the House will have been without a speaker for three weeks, hamstrung on conducting the work they were elected to do.Some moderates want to see a consensus candidate, while the far-right flank that ousted former speaker Kevin McCarthy previously said they would be “prepared to accept censure, suspension or removal from the conference” to get Jordan the speakership.A handful of Republican House members have either said they’ll seek the speakership or are considering the idea. Most prominent among them is Minnesota’s Tom Emmer, currently the majority whip, the No 3 Republican in the chamber, who has McCarthy’s backing. Others in the mix include Oklahoma’s Kevin Hern, Georgia’s Austin Scott, Florida’s Byron Donalds, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson and Michigan’s Jack Bergman.In the first floor vote of the speakership election, on Tuesday, 20 House Republicans opposed Jordan, leaving him far short of the 217 votes needed to capture the top job. Because of Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House, Jordan could only afford four defections within his conference and still ascend to the speakership.Even as Jordan tried to assuage moderates’ concerns, a second floor vote held on Wednesday revealed that opposition had only grown, as 22 Republicans opposed Jordan’s candidacy. By the third vote, on Friday, Jordan lost more support, with 25 House Republicans voting against him.As long as the House remains without a speaker, the chamber cannot advance any legislation, leaving members unable to pass critical bills like a stopgap government funding measure or an aid package for Israel and Ukraine. Government funding is set to run out in less than a month, raising the threat of a federal shutdown next month.Jordan’s announcement came two weeks after the historic ouster of McCarthy, after eight House Republicans joined Democrats in supporting a motion to vacate the chair. Following McCarthy’s removal, the House majority leader, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, initially won his conference’s nomination for speaker, but he dropped out of the race last week due to entrenched opposition among hard-right lawmakers.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs of Friday, it remained unclear how Republicans could end the standoff and resume the business of the House. One idea floated by centrist Democrats and embraced by some of Jordan’s critics involved expanding the powers of the acting speaker, the Republican Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, but the plan fizzled. Such a solution would raise serious constitutional questions, as the powers of an acting speaker are murky.With Republicans embroiled in conflict, the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, has repeatedly called for the creation of a bipartisan governing coalition between Democrats and more moderate Republicans. Even Jordan’s staunchest opponents have rejected the idea of teaming up with Democrats, although that could change if the House remains at a standstill.On Friday, Jeffries, who has received the most votes in the speakership votes but would not be able to get enough support to take the spot since Democrats are in the minority, called on his Republican colleagues to get to work. “Embrace bipartisanship and abandon extremism,” Jeffries said. More

Kenneth Chesebro, the attorney who allegedly devised the “fake electors” plan to prevent Joe Biden from winning the 2020 election, has accepted a plea deal and will avoid going to trial in the Fulton county racketeering case involving Donald Trump and 17 others.The last-minute plea deal marks the second major victory in as many days for prosecutors, who can now compel him to testify against his former allies in Trump’s inner circle to bolster their case.Chesebro appeared in court on Friday and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit filing false documents. His plea agreement is for five years of probation, $5,000 in restitution, 100 hours of community service and an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia. Most importantly, it requires that he turn over any evidence in his possession and truthfully testify at all hearings and trials involving the case’s co-defendants, including Trump.Attorney Sidney Powell, who was also set to stand trial beginning on Friday, accepted a plea deal on Thursday, potentially pressuring Chesebro into doing the same. ABC reported that two days ago he had rejected a plea offer from prosecutors to avoid jail time by pleading guilty to the conspiracy charge.Fifteen additional co-defendants, including Trump, are set to stand trial next year as a part of the racketeering case brought by the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis. Both Powell and Chesebro’s cases had been severed from the larger racketeering case because they filed demands for a speedy trial.Chesebro played two key roles in Trump’s post-election efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He wrote a pair of early December memos laying out a strategy for fake pro-Trump electors to meet in the six states where Trump lost to preserve a path forward to challenge the election in court and potentially on 6 January in Congress, and he laid out the legal argument that the vice-president could reject states’ electors during the election certification – while suggesting that Vice-President Mike Pence should recuse himself to avoid a conflict of interest.His decision to flip on Trump and his allies is potentially the most damaging for the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and the Trump attorney John Eastman, with whom he worked closely to devise the legal plot to challenge the election.Chesebro had faced seven felony counts, including a conspiracy count and six additional charges related to a plan to create “alternate electors” to falsely certify that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election. His plea deal came shortly after jury selection for his trial had begun on Friday.Attorneys for Chesebro and representatives for the Fulton county district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe decisions by Chesebro and Powell to take plea agreements could significantly strengthen Willis’s case against Trump, since both attorneys played key roles in the former president’s attempts to cling to office. Both have significant knowledge of the inner workings of the plot, and could offer new information at trial. More

The far-right congressman Jim Jordan lost a third consecutive bid for speaker on Friday, failing to overcome entrenched opposition from a widening group of Republican holdouts, some of whom say they have received death threats for blocking his ascent to the gavel.With the House leaderless for an 18th day, Jordan, a founder of the ultra-conservative House Freedom caucus and hard-charging ally of Donald Trump who led the congressional effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, won 194 votes, well shy of the majority needed to be elected speaker.In a troubling sign for Jordan, 25 Republicans voted against his nomination, three more than in the second vote and five more than in his first failed effort. All Democrats rallied behind their party’s leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who received 210 votes.Earlier on Friday, Jordan indicated that he was prepared to plough through several more rounds of balloting, noting that it took the former Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, 15 rounds to claim the gavel. Following the third vote on Friday, Republicans were planning to retreat once again behind closed doors to chart their next steps.Nominating Jordan for the job, McCarthy nodded to the chaos engulfing House Republicans. “Being speaker is not an easy job, especially in this conference,” he said, drawing some laughs in the chamber. But he urged the group he once led to set aside their objections and grievances and vote for Jordan: “I know he is ready for the job.”Congresswoman Kathleen Clark, the No 2 House Democrat, then nominated Jeffries to the speakership, warning that Jordan was a “true threat to our democracy and our constitution”.“It is not too late for the majority to choose a bipartisan path forward to reopen the House,” she said.The speaker’s chair has been empty since a cadre of hardline Republicans ousted McCarthy at the start of the month, a first in American history. Without a speaker, the immobilized chamber has been unable to conduct legislative business as wars rage in Europe and the Middle East and a government shutdown looms unless Congress passes a federal funding bill before mid-November.The White House on Friday sent a sprawling package to Congress, requesting more than $105bn in funding to, among other things, aid Ukraine and Israel and address rising numbers of migrants entering the country without authorization at the US-Mexico border.At a brief press conference on Friday morning, Jordan attempted to rally his conference behind him with remarks that placed his quest to win the speakership alongside American achievements like taking flight and landing on the moon.“The fastest way to get to work for the American people is to elect a speaker so the House can be open and we can get things done,” Jordan said on Friday morning.After three failed votes in which Jordan saw his opposition widen, additional rounds of balloting were not expected to break the impasse. A number of the holdouts have expressed their outrage at the hardball tactics employed by Jordan’s allies to win over their votes, which has devolved into harassing calls and even death threats against lawmakers and their families.“One thing I cannot stomach or support is a bully,” said a statement from the congresswomanMariannette Miller-Meeks, an Iowa Republican, who switched her vote against Jordan on a second ballot after receiving “credible death threats”.With no end in sight to the present situation on Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed a plan to expand the authority of the interim speaker, a position currently held by Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. Jordan briefly backed the proposal as a way to allow Congress to return to its work while he continued to campaign for the post that is second in line to the presidency.But a group of hard-right conservatives revolted, calling the plan “asinine” and arguing that it would in effect cede control of the floor to Democrats. Jordan dropped the idea and vowed to fight on.Republican infighting reached a boiling point this week as lawmakers vented their frustration and traded accusations of who was to blame for plunging the party – and the chamber – into chaos.The bitter feud over Jordan’s speakership bid has pitted an assorted coalition of political moderates and institutional pragmatists against the pugnacious chair of the judiciary committee. The Ohio Republican has relied on an endorsement from Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, and support from the party’s conservative grassroots to pressure them to fall in line behind him.Concerns about a Jordan speakership vary. Some fear his combative brand of politics will make it harder for Republicans to defend their House majority in the 2024 elections, while others believed the challenges facing the country and the world were too great to hand the gavel to a lawmaker one former Republican speaker branded a “legislative terrorist”.Jordan’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election that Trump lost to Joe Biden has also cost him the vote of at least one Republican lawmaker, Ken Buck, a conservative from Colorado.Asked on Friday whether he believes the 2020 election was stolen, Jordan replied: “I think there were all kinds of problems with the 2020 election.”In the narrowly divided House, Jordan would need the support of nearly every Republican in the conference to claim the gavel. In a second ballot on Wednesday, Jordan also lost ground, with 22 Republicans voting against him, two more than on the first ballot.Late on Thursday, Jordan met with his detractors. At the press conference, he characterized the conversation as “good” but it was clear he remained far off from winning the 217 votes needed to become speaker.Following a meeting with Jordan, the congressman Mike Lawler, a New York Republican opposed to Jordan, called for the conference to reinstate McCarthy or empower McHenry.“We must prove to the American people that we can govern effectively and responsibly or, in 15 months, we’ll be debating who the minority leader is and preparing for Joe Biden’s second inaugural,” he said. More