It would be tempting to compare the House GOP caucus to the Mickey Mouse Club. But at least the Mickey Mouse Club had a leader. House Republicans are nowhere close to being able to say the same.
It’s been a week and a half since a group of eight disgruntled Republicans ousted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Then late Thursday night, U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, the well-liked number two Republican in the House, withdrew his bid for speaker after members who had been for him began to make new demands to continue their support.
In the same period of time that the House has been leaderless, Hamas launched a deadly massacre against Israel. Israel responded by bombing Gaza, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken traveled to the Middle East with the United States’ hostage specialist to seek the return of Americans held there.
Some Republicans seemed to be picking a best friend instead of a speaker.
“I love Steve Scalise, he’s a good friend. But I’m also really good friends with Jim Jordan,” U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn, said outside the caucus room Thursday. “It’s a tough choice for me.”
And although Scalise looked healthy and strong last week, Georgia’s U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she voted for Jordan because she wants the Louisianan to focus on his cancer treatments instead of running the House. “This is personal for me,” she said, explaining her father had died of cancer.
While Scalise continued to work the phones, a House staffer texted me to point out that McCarthy still has more support than any other Republican, even after being tossed. Maybe he should try again? Or how about U.S. Rep. Tom Cole? He’s not running but people like him, I heard.
With no easy path to a new speaker on the horizon by Thursday night, talk turned to the idea of simply giving Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry more power, even though McHenry ascended to the position by being named to the spot by McCarthy in the first place.
The role of Pro Tem was modified after 9/11 to ensure that someone would be available to oversee the election of the next House leader should “the unthinkable” happen, a Democratic House staffer told me. But that unthinkable was a terrorist attack or murder of the sitting speaker, not an intra-party squabble that led to a coup by eight back-benchers.
The Republican making the most sense this week was Texas’ U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, who warned as he left a follow-up meeting Thursday that his GOP conference is “playing with fire.” Without a speaker, they cannot pass aid to Israel or take any other proactive steps in the spiraling crisis.
“I just made the conference aware we are living in a dangerous world. … I see a lot of threats out there, but one of the biggest threats I see is in that room.”
Despite the chaos playing out in the caucus, there are also thoughtful members of the GOP who are beside themselves over the dysfunction among their own colleagues. But the House rules that McCarthy left behind have empowered the extreme and audacious over the thoughtful and concerned.
U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter was visibly distraught at what the infighting is doing to the once-venerable legislative branch, not to mention what it could mean for Israel if the House remains powerless to help them.
And U.S. Rep. Austin Scott told CNN, “It makes us look like a bunch of idiots.” He’s not wrong.
Luckily for the Republicans, this problem may eventually solve itself since their sheer inability to govern themselves may convince voters they can’t be trusted to govern the country either. In the next Congress, it may be Democrats who get to pick a speaker instead and they’ve already voted for theirs, unanimously.