Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan is to hold a press event on Friday morning at 8:00 AM ET, during which he is expected to announce his continued efforts to bludgeon his fellow Republicans until they like him.
After days in which enthusiasm for Jordan’s bid for Speaker of the House has consistently declined, Republicans spent much of the evening searching for some alternative. There were clearly enough hardcore holdouts that another vote was futile. Schemes to turn Rep. Patrick McHenry into a kind of Speaker pro tem+ so that bills could be moved forward, fell apart over Jordan’s insistence that any deal come with language that made him the designated heir to the chair. Efforts to secure some kind of alternative disintegrated into squabbles, including performative posturing between former speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Matt Gaetz, and now the only plan seems to be … whatever Jordan is going to say this morning.
Since bullying and threats of violence have cost Jordan votes in the last week, expect this speech to include … more bullying and threats of violence. Because that’s surely what this moment needs.