America's Talking - Scalise Drops Out of Speakership Bid After Significant Opposition

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

U.S. House Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., was the leading contender to be the speaker of the House Thursday morning, but by the evening, news broke that he was dropping his bid for the position. Multiple lawmakers and media outlets reported Scalise's announcement, which he made to a group of reporters at the Capitol late Thursday. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is a key contender as well, but at least for now, neither seems able to nab the 217 needed votes to become speaker of the House. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper. How are you, Casey? Doing well, Dan. How are you? I am doing well, but the news isn't doing so well, Casey. We are recording this on Friday, October 13th. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas carried out a brutal sneak attack on Israel last weekend,

killing well over a thousand innocent civilians, including young children in just brutal fashion. More than 20 Americans also were killed in the surprise attack. Israel, of course, retaliated and appeared ready to be, as we're recording this, appear ready to begin a ground invasion into Gaza to destroy the terrorists. Now I want to talk about what's going on with the U.S. House Speaker position and the tumultuous attempt by majority of Republicans to replace ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Earlier this week, Republicans appeared ready to select House Majority. Majority Leader Steve Scalise as McCarthy's successor, but fierce opposition from conservatives delayed

any full house vote. And late last night, Scalise took himself out of the running. What's going on here, Casey? Chaos, you know, we thought that we were at a time of chaos when the infamous Donald Trump was in the White House. And I think people maybe thought when he left that politics would return to some, you know, nostalgic sense of normal. But I think those days are behind us, you know, at least for the for the near future because the House has descended into total chaos. The Republicans are no closer. They're actually further away from finding a speaker than they were earlier this week. Scalise, you know, you said conservative Republicans opposed him. And that's definitely true. But it was more than that because Scalise, you know, Kevin McCarthy told reporters, of course, the former House Speaker

McCarthy, he told reporters that, you know, Scalise had told the other Republican lawmakers, that he would get up to 150 supporters by, you know, before his, this next conference meeting. And he didn't have that. And so this isn't, we're not talking about this, you know, eight or so lawmakers who stalled McCarthy saying we're talking, it seems like at least, you know, 50, maybe 70, maybe more lawmakers. We're not ready to commit to Scalise. Now, from things I've heard, And I'm seeing, I think that Scalise was not willing to kind of go to them and cater and say, I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to do this for you.

I think he was more taking the approach of this is what I'm going to do. You can support me or not. And in the temperature of this Congress, that wasn't good enough. So now there is really the ball is going to be in Jim Jordan's court. But I'm not sure that anybody wants to be up for the speakership race right now. It's probably a lose lose. I mean, Jim Jordan could very easily end up in the same position Scalise was in, which is he has enough support to be expected to get the position, but not enough to even be able to get

close. So he needs 217 votes. Meanwhile, Democrats continually keep nominating Hakeem Jeffries, who is really the Democratic leader, right? It's Nancy Pelosi's replacement. There has been talks of finding some kind of candidate for speakership that the Democrats could support, but I think that's pretty optimistic. And I cannot envision the name of that Republican, Dan, that Democrats would say, yeah, I'll vote for that Republican to be Speaker of the House. Let's speak briefly about Jordan, the Republican from Ohio, who has been the House Judiciary Chairman, has been leading the investigation into the Biden family business dealings, et cetera.

He certainly probably doesn't have the support of moderate Republicans in the House. I mean, it's hard to know. You would probably say in normal circumstances, no, but there's an unusual pressure now, Dan, because just a few weeks, just before Thanksgiving, mid-November, the government is set to shut down. And when we had a speaker of the house and everything was in order and we had months leading up to the last government shutdown, we almost didn't make it. I mean, we came right up to the borderline, right? And almost shut the government down. And here we are, basically a month away from a government shutdown, not anywhere close to having a speaker. And the reason I say all that, and plus, you mentioned Israel. There's an increasing pressure for Congress to pass

some kind of aid, you know, munitions and financial aid increase for Israel and their war against, you know, the Hamas terrorists in Gaza. But all that pressure from the shutdown in the Israel war is putting more pressure on these moderate Republicans to just pick somebody. And I think that is becoming, you know, the American sentiment is, guys, just pick somebody, you know. And so that pressure is going to be, it's going to make it hard for moderate Republicans to hold out for, quote, unquote, the perfect option. You know, I think Jordan does face a tough road. It's going to be hard for him to get support from any kind of moderate Republicans. But if it's not Jordan, who's it going to be? Well, let me throw one other sort of sounds like a far-fetched scenario out there. Is there any

situation where you could see Jeffries, the Democrat leader, be elected speaker? You know, I I do actually think it is possible. It is just going to come down to probably the handful of very moderate Republicans who say they're going to do it for the good of the country. And maybe they tried to do it just long enough to fund the government and then vacate him, something like that. There's also been talk about somehow trying to get the temporary speaker, the pro temp, to have his time, just give him the powers of a speaker just long enough to fund the government and then remove it. You know, that is possible. I think, I mean, I do think we're kind of closer and closer to moving to a very unusual thing in modern politics where we have a bipartisan pick for a speaker.

But it's hard to imagine that because, you know, for all the hate that Republican conservative, you know, holdouts got for ousting McCarthy, every single Democrat just about voted to remove McCarthy also. So I think they are, I mean, I understand why they did it. They wanted the Republicans to be in chaos. They wanted to stop the Republicans from having any of their agenda pass through. Of course, they don't support McCarthy, but they kind of are complicit in a sense in some of this chaos because they, I think they wanted to watch the Republicans burn a little bit. Well, Casey, of course, this is a developing story could change any moment. Our listeners can keep up with this developing story at thecenter square.com, but we are out of time for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McCaleb.

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