Live coverage: Emmer out, chaos continues

Now they say there are 20 missing, so maybe some came in when the voting started?

There are 25 members absent. Which is a lot. 

They’re doing the roll call vote now where everybody has to say out loud if they’re going to vote for Johnson or not on the floor.

And here’s the kiss of death for his bid.

Ok, Johnson got what he needed. But damn, that a lot of pissed off people who don’t want him.

Once again, these people. 

They’re counting the (checks notes) third round of votes now. (It’s been a long day.)

With just 204 voting, Johnson only needs to reach 103, which is certainly doable tonight. But with that 101 voting for other people—and a third of those for people who aren’t even on the ballot—his prospects for 217 are not rosy.

Doesn’t look like anybody is rushing to 217. That’s a whole lot of others, and just 204 votes total. 

The first round of voting (or fourth? fifth? what day is it?) is done and Fleischmann is out.

They’ve started voting, finally. How long they intend to go tonight is unclear, whether they think the can find “the one” or just winnow some more isn’t an unknown, I expect even to them. 

Well, why the hell not. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who’s presidential campaign is not going gangbusters, has decided he should weigh in on the House debacle. He says bring back Gingrich. No. Really.

They are children.

The good news is that there are enough people who hate both McCarthy and Jordan to make that not happen. There’s only good news as far as that goes. The bad news is there isn’t any kind of plan for a speaker at all. But they’ll vote again in a few minutes and then come back tomorrow, possibly for for-real votes. Or not. 

McCarthy really wants the job back, and has been floating this nightmare scenario: “reinstall him as speaker and make conservative Trump ally, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the assistant speaker.” That’s been floating around on social media for a few hours, but is now confirmed by three sources to NBC.  

There won’t be votes on the floor tonight, anyway.

Next round of voting in the GOP conference is slated to start at 8:00 ET tonight. 

This seems a little hinky, like someone is trying to manufacture momentum for Johnson.

The candidate forum is now happening, to be followed by more voting. Like it’ll make any difference. Anyway, (shocker) they don’t expect floor votes tonight. 

The official list this round:

Byron Donalds (FL)
Chuck Fleischmann (TN)
Mark Green (TN)Kevin Hern (OK)
Mike Johnson (LA)
Roger Williams (TX)

No women. Go figure.

Masochists (sadists, too): “Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) ahead of the 6pm House GOP Speaker election meeting: ‘The consensus is, unless it changes, is to stay here all night until we pick somebody.’”

Bergman not back in, after all.

So far, Johnson and Bergman (really, dude?) are back in it, and a new one, Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, chair of the Homeland Security Committee, has joined. He’s been being talked up by a few of the Freedom Caucus maniacs.

Candidate have another 20 minutes to declare they’re in. Maybe a woman will give it a go this time?

Sure. Fine. Whatever.

She’s probably not wrong. 

Donalds is supposedly back in, too. At some point you’d think somebody would look at the Democrats and see salvation (at least temporarily).

Ok, what they decided to go with is letting two of the losers from this go ‘round—Hern and Johnson—try again. Is there any chance either of them can break the logjam? Nothing is impossible, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Where do they go from here? Hell if I know. There could be the McHenry Empowerment option, but too many on the right are too paranoid about that. The only way that happens is with a power-sharing agreement with Dems and I don’t know that McHenry would be open to that. They are well and truly stuck.

And he’s out.

Ok, the meeting has started but: 

Trump is reportedly personally making calls against Emmer. He was with Emmer before he was against him, by the way.

Looks like some are taking the Mike Johnson threat seriously, not the least because he was an integral part of Trump’s effort in Congress to overturn the election, including organizing members to sign the amicus brief to the Supreme Court. 

The political team of former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who became an outspoken opponent of the former president, sent around some old clips about Johnson’s involvement and highlighted the New York Times calling him “the most important architect of the Electoral College objections.”

Some members are talking up Mike Johnson again. Yes, guys, please do that. Johnson was an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom before going to Congress. You know the ADF, the people who brought us Dobbs, advocate for a national abortion ban, and are pushing to make the abortion pill illegal, along with some forms of birth control. Yes, make THAT GUY the face of the House GOP. 

McCarthy ouster-er Matt Rosendale from Montana wants a redo of this morning’s votes, giving Johnson and Hern another go at it. Because repeating what already didn’t work is the way to go. These people.

The absurdity does not abate. Guy who lost in the first round this time, Rep. Pete Sessions, says they’re going to start looking for a speaker outside of the current House next, if they can’t get there with Emmer. Not that Sessions necessarily knows anything about it.

Team Trump is now actively whipping against Emmer. It’s hard to see it moving to the floor at this point. It’s hard to see Emmer’s candidacy lasting until the reconvene in an hour.

They’re now talking about having the guy Emmer beat last—Mike Johnson—as “the only Republican who can get to 217.” This is all falling apart again, just like Steve Bannon wanted it to.

Gaetz is not helping Emmer after Trump’ bomb, saying now he “believes it’s really important to listen to ‘the leader of our party.’”

Of course. 

Steve Bannon is at work behind the scenes to torpedo Emmer, which helps explain Trump finally paying attention to this. Bannon is back to helping the agents of chaos—and Vladimir Putin—by keeping one half of one of the three branches of government paralyzed.

The MAGA crowd are angry at Emmer for voting to certify the 2020 election. The non-MAGAs are giving him credit for that. But here’s a good point about his votes to certify state electors: he was NRCC chair for the 2020 election and he picked up a majority-setting 13 seats. Of course he didn’t want to say those elections were invalid. That said, he has supported marriage equality, voted to keep government operating, and for aid to Ukraine. But he’s not necessarily going to stand up to Donald Trump.

At least three (Nehls, Banks, Greene) have been pretty definitive in opposing Emmer. That’s all he can afford to lose and still get to 217, again barring any Democrats voting present or not voting. Don’t expect Democrats to gift him that without a lot in return. If they ever get to the point of this nomination going to the floor.

The airing of grievances seems to have gotten a little heated. They’re taking a break until 4:00 ET.

We now know Rep. Chip Roy, Texas, is one of the jerks voting present. Figures. Also, one of those voting for Emmer. So were Biggs, Davidson, Nehls, and Steube. The majority of the other votes against Emmer were for Jordan. Talk about your lost causes.

Meanwhile, the Senate is moving forward with a “minibus” spending bill, working their way toward averting a government shutdown in 24 days.

It’s Festivus in the House!

For what it’s worth, when the GOP held their final vote on Jordan last week, he got just 86 votes. So Emmer is doing swimmingly well!

According to what Politico’s Olivia Beavers is hearing, Emmer got some of the Freedom Caucus members, including Reps. Boebert, Donalds, and Luna, as well as Gaetz. Who knows what the dividing lines are in this group.

CNN reports: “Emmer wants to keep having roll call votes behind closed-doors until he get 217, per Rep. Dave Joyce. And wants to keep fielding questions and concerns from members in there.”

Joyce had the McHenry Empowerment resolution ready last week, his interim plan to elect McHenry as acting temporary speaker in order to conduct critical House business. He says he’s ready to push it again if Emmer can’t consolidate the conference.

Hypothetically, Democrats could help Emmer out by voting “present” on the floor, as Steve Kornacki games out. But that’s a helluva lot of Democratic votes (or non-votes) he would need and that’s just not happening. Not without some kind of agreement on bipartisan governing.

This is a lot. 

The results of the roll call vote still haven’t been released, but Emmer is lacking “more than 20” votes according to reports. More than 20, less than 30. He can’t go to the floor with that, not without another total embarrassment. 

Still nothing official out of the room on the roll call vote, but:

According to reports from the conference room, Emmer lacks at least 10 votes to get to 217. However, he supposedly wants to take it to the floor today. There is still no official guidance on what happens next.

Here’s a good reminder of what’s happened in the last three weeks:

Jordan beat Scott 124-81
Scalise beat Jordan: 113-99
Emmer beat Johnson 117-97

Getting to 217 is going to be a slog for Emmer.

This is a joy. 

Emmer takes it, with 117 votes. Johnson got 97, and there were still 6 abstentions.

The maniacs might just be getting tired of this, too. CNN’s Manu Raju reports that Rep. Scott Perry, House Freedom Caucus chair, “said he ‘never’ says ‘never’ against a particular candidate but makes clear he has concerns about Tom Emmer’s votes on spending bills. ‘I’m concerned about that,’ he said this AM.” Emmer voted to keep government open last month. Leaving the door ajar for Emmer is at least something.

One of the things going against Johnson, who is GOP Conference Chair, is that he’s from Louisiana, as is Majority Leader Steve Scalise. Giving the two top jobs to members from the same state is just a thing members innately distrust. On the other hand, he’s the last MAGA candidate (or MAGA-adjacent, anyway) standing.

If Johnson picks up the 50 Donalds/Hern votes, then it’s a squeaker, 107-106, presuming no one abandons Emmer. The six hold-outs are going to have to commit.

Vote totals aren’t out yet, but it’s down to just Emmer and Johnson. Hern lost on the last ballot and was eliminated, and Donalds voluntarily withdrew.

This is an interesting proposal from Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw: changing the rules so that a plurality can elect the speaker, instead of a majority of 217. He is “socializing” the idea among the GOP, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. He thinks that if they change the rule then Republicans will all band together to prevent Democrat Hakeem Jeffries from winning. Crenshaw’s problem getting this adopted is that it will take 217 votes, and the likes of Matt Gaetz are probably not likely to give away their power so easily.

If you’re wondering what the Democrats are doing:

The arch conservatives—Hern, Donalds, and Johnson—had101 votes between them on the last round. Emmers had 100. If the conservatives can rally behind one candidate, which they have shown no capacity to do thus far, then they might be able to take Emmer down. But if he keeps picking up the discard votes, it seems like he’ll come out of this the “winner.” 

They don’t have full attendance. There are 224 members eligible to vote in conference, three of whom are delegates who can’t vote on the floor. There have been just 219 people voting in the first rounds.

There aren’t any reports yet of screaming matches or bloodletting, and it’s going pretty quickly. Someone, at this rate Emmer, just might emerge out of this today with a majority. Whether he can get to 217 when the MAGA knives come out is a bigger question. That’s where, possibly, some negotiating with Democrats could come into play. But that’s probably the least likely of outcomes.

Emmer has the momentum, definitely, steadily picking up ground. The most Freedom Caucusie guy, Donalds, seems to be topping out. Johnson is just sort of hanging in there.

After round 3, Scott is out. He did pretty well to get that far, since this all started for him as kind of whim when he decided at the last minute last week that Jim Jordan needed to have an opponent. There are still 6 assholes refusing to play along.

A note on the process: They aren’t necessarily looking for a candidate with 217 votes in this. The winner will be whoever gets a majority of the votes cast.

The guy who still seems to be thinking he’ll sweep in and save the day at the end, Kevin McCarthy, on how all this chaos reflects on GOP. “Very, very poorly. From every aspect, and it’s frustrating because it’s just a few these eight, working with all the Democrats to ruin the reputation of the Republicans but we’ll earn it back. There has to be consequences.”

This is curious, and kind of big if true.

Meanwhile, interim Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry gaveled the House in and then right back out because they can’t do anything else until there’s a speaker. We are entering the fourth week of a paralyzed House.

Who in the world are the people voting “other” or “present”?

Jack Bergman, the retired Lt. Gen. from Michigan, was the loser in the second round of balloting, so he’s out and they are on to round 3.

This relatively significant. Norman is dyed-in-the-wool Freedom Caucus.

The first round is done. Pete Sessions (Texas) is now out.