Almost exactly three weeks into their House Speaker debacle, Republicans were back at square one Monday night, meeting in the same room where they first heard from candidates weeks ago, hearing about the same solutions to the same problems that GOP lawmakers keep bringing up. Only this time, they insisted it was different.
“I feel optimistic that by tomorrow night, we’ll have a speaker,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE).
“I hope everybody learned a lesson,” Bacon continued. “When you’re five people or eight people and you undercut the majority, there’s a price to pay and that’s what happened last week. Let’s learn our lesson and work out our differences like right now behind closed doors. We’re gonna do it tomorrow morning.”
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Missing in that optimistic take, however, is Bacon’s own role in preventing a speaker. He was one of the Republicans who voted last week against the most recent speaker nominee, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). And while his “price to pay” for conservatives taking down Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the first speaker-designee—Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA)—might have been denying the agitators their pick in Jordan, there’s a distinct possibility other Republicans try to extract their own retaliation for denying Jordan.
At least, there’s no guarantee Republicans will finally come together tomorrow and immediately unite behind one person.
Despite all the happy talk Monday night, there were already signs that some Republicans weren’t just going to throw their support behind whoever emerges from an internal election Tuesday. When Freedom Caucus conservative Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) was asked about supporting any of the nine—now eight—candidates running for speaker, he was noncommittal.
“We’ll see,” Roy said Monday night. “I didn’t sign the pledge thing that’s going around.”
The “pledge thing that’s going around” is a promise to vote for the next speaker nominee. And the fact that Republicans were already throwing cold water on the pledge Monday night was just the latest sign that the House GOP hadn’t solved some of the larger problems plaguing the conference.
And yet, Republicans are betting that, after three weeks of drama, the next person who wins the nomination will be able to get near-unanimous support—either through ascension, exhaustion, or some combination of the two.
At their candidate forum Monday evening, the eight hopefuls pitched their vision of the speakership during a two-and-a-half-hour closed-door meeting. (The ninth candidate, Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA), has already dropped out.)
The slate of speaker wannabes includes House Minority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN); Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern (R-OK); Freedom Caucus sophomore Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL); Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA), who previously lost the nomination to Jordan; Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), the House Republican conference vice chairman and a former RSC chair; Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Rules Committee; and Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL), chair of the Republican Policy Committee.
With so many candidates in the race this time, it’s easy to see how the process could introduce more bad blood into a process already tainted by the GOP’s special brand of acrimony. And with Republican factions in the conference insisting on promises about issues—like state and local taxes, Ukraine funding, a government shutdown, and the overall appropriations process—it’s easy to see how this process could be more complicated than Republicans are pretending at the moment.
The GOP conference will vote using a sequence of secret ballots Tuesday morning to determine their speaker pick. To win the nomination, a candidate will need a majority of the conference’s support—at least 113 votes if everyone shows up and votes.
House Republicans have had little problem finding a speaker candidate capable of reaching that number; the problem has been finding a candidate who can get to the magic number 217—the majority of the overall Congress. With Democrats basically unwilling to support a GOP candidate without major concessions—and the GOP unwilling to make those concessions—Republicans have to find the votes among themselves.
And with so many issues in front of Republicans in the coming weeks—spending bills, a potential government shutdown, weapons support for Ukraine—it’s no given that the next Republican can get the votes.
“There is only one person who can do it all the way,” former President Donald Trump said Monday during a stop at the New Hampshire statehouse. “You know who that is? Jesus Christ.”
Trump has thus far mostly stayed out of the speaker saga. And even though some Republicans are hoping the former president could dash the dreams of some candidates—most notably perhaps, Emmer, the No. 3 Republican who appears best poised to emerge Tuesday as the Republicans’ speaker nominee—Trump looks poised to once again stay away from the drama.
Corners of Trumpworld have a grudge against Emmer, viewing him as insufficiently MAGA, given that he voted to certify the 2020 election. And Trump allies are reportedly circulating a 216-page dossier full of opposition research on Emmer, hitting him on a past DUI citation, his friendship with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), even his use of the congressional earmark process.
But Trump doesn’t seem to have as much of a problem with Emmer as others, particularly after Emmer apparently called Trump Sunday, according to the former president, and told him, “‘I’m your biggest fan.’”
(Emmer has been boosting Trump’s comment on Twitter in an apparent attempt to assuage his colleagues' concerns.)
Emmer is the frontrunner to get the internal nomination for a number of reasons. He has name recognition, respect among many of his peers, and leadership cred. He chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, helping elect a score of members now in office and win the majority. He also has a whip operation—as the actual GOP whip, whose job is to secure the votes for Republican priorities.
But if Emmer is the favorite to first get to 113 votes, there’s no guarantee he can just quickly go to the floor—as Republicans seem to plan to do—and muscle through the internal drama.
In a recording of his podcast on Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—who orchestrated McCarthy’s removal three weeks ago—offered a mostly objective take on the field. Although increasingly loathed by his colleagues, Gaetz is more influential than ever on the grassroots right, so his analysis of the candidates could presage the fault lines in the race.
Far from framing the race as a referendum on MAGA fealty, Gaetz said the speaker candidates will be judged by their position on what he called “the original sin of the McCarthy speakership,” the June deal on federal spending and the debt ceiling.
McCarthy brokered that deal with President Joe Biden to extend the federal government’s borrowing authority in exchange for agreeing to particular spending levels for the coming year. But many conservatives—who didn’t want to lift the debt ceiling in the first place—viewed it as an unacceptable compromise that ensured future spending defeats later in the year, a view that completely discards the reality of governing in a divided Washington.
Despite being endorsed by McCarthy and facing ire from some corners of Trumpworld, Emmer got a favorable review from Gaetz, his vote in favor of the debt deal aside. Notably, Gaetz called him “one of the few members of leadership who doesn’t lie to the membership.”
Donalds, who may well emerge as the Freedom Caucus choice, received plenty of praise from Gaetz—the two have a deep history in political circles of their native Florida. But the two feuded in September when Donalds backed a stopgap resolution to fund the government ahead of a shutdown, an automatic strike for some conservatives who believe such resolutions are never warranted.
But Gaetz might have tipped his hand most in praising Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), a staunch conservative who is his close colleague on the House Judiciary Committee. Johnson, he said, would “make a phenomenal speaker.”
“There might be one or two who had plans that I think were pretty inconsistent with where I think Republicans can go if we want to be a fighting force,” Gaetz said after the candidate forum. “But I’d say by and large, we had really great candidates and I’m pretty confident that the person that comes out will be able to put it together.”
After three weeks of consternation, Republicans finally do seem ready to be done with speaker spectacle. Several lawmakers reported Monday night that their constituents had chewed them out over the weekend and that, after all the yelling, the conference is out of steam to keep up the infighting.
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY), one of Jordan’s detractors, told reporters that, what was different this time, is that members are “tired” and “frustrated.”
“It’s the realization that America is watching,” D’Esposito said. “And for me, I was sent here to work. I’m not a guy who likes to sit around and I have not the best patience—and this is actually driving me crazy. So I think that that’s a lot of us.”
The ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza has also applied added pressure on Republicans to elect a speaker so Congress can advance an aid package to Israel. The government will also shut down if Congress does not approve a spending plan by Nov. 17.
“Just the sheer exhaustion,” said Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) when asked what makes this attempt different. “I mean, we’ve got to get this done, and one of our greatest allies is at war. It’s a dangerous world. It’s a small world. And enough is enough after I don’t even know how long it's been now.”
Still, there were already signs that it wouldn’t be as easy as Republicans are just tired of not having a speaker.
When Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN), who initially voted against Jordan before reversing herself, was asked Monday night if she had heard anything during the candidate forum Monday night that she liked, she said she hadn’t.
If even just a few members feel the same, Republicans could again be back to the drawing board. And even if Republicans agree on someone now, there’s no guarantee that person will last very long. Just 24 days until a government shutdown, the House GOP is betting it can pass a slate of appropriations bills and then miraculously force the Democratic Senate and the Democratic president to swallow their policies.
And when that doesn’t work out, without any reforms to the process that easily removed McCarthy, it might be a matter of weeks until Republicans are back in the same room hearing from more candidates.
