Yesterday the Republican members of the House of Representatives (there are 221 in all) met behind closed doors to hear from the two candidates Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan who put their names forward to replace Kevin McCarthy as speaker. In order to prevent a repeat of the public humiliation that took place in January when McCarthy had to make all manner of deals to win over votes and even then it took 15 rounds of voting, this time the party decided that they would vote behind closed doors until one candidate got at least 217 votes, the minimum necessary to get a majority in the 433-member house (two seats are vacant due to resignations).
Scalise and Jordan are supporters of all the extreme Republican positions. Both are Trump loyalists who refuse to concede that he lost the election and have refused to condemn the actions of the January 6th rioters. Scalise has even given a speech to a white nationalist neo-Nazi group and reportedly once referred to himself as “David Duke without the baggage”. In a normal party, such things would hurt a politician but in today’s Republican party it is likely seen as a plus. Meanwhile Jordan has been dogged by allegations that when he was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University, he turned a blind eye to rampant sexual abuse of about 300 wrestlers by the team doctor, claiming that he did not know what was going on.
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