Fox News host Brian Kilmeade was less than pleased when the first Republican holdout voted against Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for speaker of the House on Tuesday, calling the conservative lawmaker a “dumbass” while his network was covering the floor vote live.
In a scenario eerily reminiscent of Kevin McCarthy’s marathon series of votes to finally secure the speakership in January, Jordan failed on the first ballot as 20 House Republicans voted for other nominees.
It was all but certain that Jordan would fail in the first round of votes, as he could only afford to lose three votes overall in the closely divided chamber. Still, Jordan’s allies had hoped that Republican opposition would only be in the single digits and the GOP holdouts would feel pressured to quickly back Jordan.
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Kilmeade, who earlier in the day called the House GOP a “carnival of idiots” over the self-imposed leadership crisis, was co-hosting Fox News’ Outnumbered when the network began covering the floor vote.
With his mic still hot, Kilmeade offered up a bit of commentary when Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)—a swing district Republican who had previously made it clear he doesn’t support Jordan—voted for McCarthy, who was booted from the speaker’s role two weeks ago.
“Dumbass,” Kilmeade fumed.
Following McCarthy’s ouster as speaker, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) narrowly edged out Jordan in a secret ballot vote to determine the GOP’s speaker designate, only to drop out a day later after it was clear that Jordan’s supporters wouldn’t back him. While Jordan later won another caucus vote to become the nominee, many moderate Republicans declared that they couldn’t support the congressman once described by former Speaker John Boehner as a “legislative terrorist.”
Fox News, meanwhile, has tried to rally support for the Ohio Republican, who has appeared on the network’s airwaves nearly 600 times. Sean Hannity, for instance, has used his network perch to intimidate GOP holdouts into jumping on the Jordan bandwagon and avoid making any deals with House Democrats. After his pressure campaign was exposed, Hannity grumbled that a “few sensitive little snowflakes in Congress” were complaining about him.
