House speaker live updates: Standoff moves into Day 3

Table Of Content

• Questions swirl over the future of TikTok. Who could own it? How will the platform operate?
• Jim Jordan will back empowering interim speaker Patrick McHenry temporarily
• House voting now to pass resolution in support of Israel in war against Hamas
• Column: The Republican Party can still do what’s rational and right. Here’s the proof
• Israel-Hamas war protesters arrested in Texas, others defy Columbia University demand to leave camp

One of the bills coming up would crack down on antisemitism by forcing the government to adopt a definition that has been criticized for equating condemnation of Israel with prejudice against Jews. The top House Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, wrote to the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, asking him to hold a vote on a different piece of legislation that has bipartisan support – we’ll see if that goes anywhere. Speaking of Johnson, all eyes are on Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right congresswoman who is attempting to boot him from the speaker’s post for his collaboration with Democrats. She does not seem to have much support, but has reportedly vowed to press on.

Questions swirl over the future of TikTok. Who could own it? How will the platform operate?

“I feel confident,” he said Tuesday while trailed by a scrum of reporters in the Capitol. Jordan says he’s been picking up support every day and feels good ahead of the vote for House speaker. Donald Trump is reupping his support of his top ally in the House ahead of the vote for speaker. Members of the House are getting settled in for what is expected to be multiple rounds of votes for speaker. With one Republican absent today, Jordan cannot afford to lose more than three GOP votes.

Jim Jordan will back empowering interim speaker Patrick McHenry temporarily

We are waiting for House Clerks to finalize the tally and sign the roll but pending any last minute — and unexpected — changes, Jim Jordan will fall short in the second ballot by an even larger margin than the first. She reads bills, motions and other materials before the House when it’s in session. Here are the Republicans whose votes moved for and against Mr. Jordan on the second vote.

House voting now to pass resolution in support of Israel in war against Hamas

But he withdrew from the race because he believed a "three-man race for Speaker will only draw this process out longer, creating further division which would make it harder for any candidate to reach 217 votes." The move to drop Jordan followed an earlier vote on the House floor that made clear his support was eroding. Jordan won 194 votes in this round, compared to 200 in the first round on Tuesday and 199 in the second on Wednesday. The number of Republicans voting for various non-Jordan protest candidates grew over the course of the three rounds, from 20, to 22, to 25 on Friday. Historically, the magical number has been 218 out of the 435 members of the House. But many previous speakers, including outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have ascended to the dais with fewer votes than that, as some members voted present instead of calling out a name.

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Mike Johnson clinches GOP House speaker nomination hours after Tom Emmer drops out: Highlights - NBC News

Mike Johnson clinches GOP House speaker nomination hours after Tom Emmer drops out: Highlights.

Posted: Tue, 24 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

“I am focused on electing Jim Jordan, who is our speaker nominee, as speaker of the House,” McHenry told reporters. A Republican congresswoman who initially supported Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker before she backed another GOP lawmaker said she received death threats and threatening phone calls after she cast her vote Wednesday. As he passed reporters asking whether members would go to the floor for a third vote today, Jordan said, "That's the plan." Jordan lost the support of 20 of his fellow Republicans in his first attempt at the speakership, winning 200 votes and falling short of the 217 needed to prevail.

Jordan has been a top Trump ally, particularly during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by the former president’s backers who were trying to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Biden. Some Republicans resent being pressured by Jordan’s allies and say they are being threatened with primary opponents if they don’t support him as speaker. Flexing their independence, the holdouts are a mix of pragmatists — ranging from seasoned legislators and committee chairs worried about governing, to newer lawmakers from districts where voters back home prefer President Joe Biden to Trump. Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California nominated Jeffries, noting the Democratic leader continues to win more votes and is the best choice to move the country forward. Gingrich said while he likes Jordan, he has “no faith” the nominee can get much beyond the 200 votes he won in the first vote. Next steps were highly uncertain as angry, frustrated Republicans looked at other options.

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Dozens of states and the federal government have put in place TikTok bans on government devices. Texas’ ban was challenged last year by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which argued in a lawsuit that the policy was impeding academic freedom because it extended to public universities. After UMG pulled its catalog from the app and as political pressure - or even a domestic ban - threatens its viability, artists and their creative and business teams are pondering a world without it. Members of both parties, along with intelligence officials, have worried that Chinese authorities could force ByteDance to hand over American user data or direct the company to suppress or boost TikTok content favorable to its interests. TikTok has denied assertions that it could be used as a tool of the Chinese government and has said it has not shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities. The bill’s quick path through Congress is extraordinary because it targets one company and because Congress has taken a hands-off approach to tech regulation for decades.

Israel-Hamas war protesters arrested in Texas, others defy Columbia University demand to leave camp

Gaetz also called Bost a “fine gentleman” who sometimes gets emotional but noted that he had apologized. CNN previously reported that some Jordan holdouts had refused to meet with the speaker designee or to take his calls. The political climb has been steep for Jordan who is known more as a chaos agent than a skilled legislator, raising questions about how he would lead. Congress faces daunting challenges, risking a federal shutdown at home if it fails to fund the government and fielding Biden’s requests for aid to help Ukraine and Israel in the wars abroad. “We’ll keep talking to members, keep working on it,” Jordan, a founding member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, said after the vote, vowing to stay in the race. In a surprise move, Jordan will back a plan to temporarily empower interim speaker Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., until January, according to three sources.

But several of the mainstream Republicans who voted against Mr. Jordan said they were irrevocably opposed to his candidacy, and predicted that opposition to the Ohio Republican would only grow. Many of them said they were emboldened to hold their ground by the pressure campaign that Mr. Jordan’s allies unleashed on them over the weekend to try to get them to cave and support him. The tactics included posting the holdouts’ names and office phone numbers to social media and in some cases running robocalls in their districts.

The situation has grown dire for McCarthy's political future as Republican allies are beginning to fear that the House GOP leader may not be able to pull off his gamble for speaker if the fight goes much longer. Even if he wins the top job when the new House convenes in January and elects a speaker, McCarthy faces a difficult road in corralling the party’s factions. House Republicans voted Tuesday to nominate Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy as the next speaker, putting the Bakersfield lawmaker on track to achieve a long-sought ambition. It also contained a measure to help pave the way to selling off frozen Russian sovereign assets to help fund the Ukrainian war effort, and a new round of sanctions on Iran. The Senate is expected to pass the legislation as early as Tuesday and send it to President Biden’s desk, capping its tortured journey through Congress. However, a bungled presidential run meant DeSantis left the race after the Iowa caucus in January at the beginning of the primary.

He has covered campaigns and elections in 49 of the 50 states, including a dozen presidential contests and scores of mayoral, legislative, gubernatorial and congressional races. He also reported from the White House and Capitol Hill during the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. Eight Republican lawmakers joined 208 Democrats in toppling the former Bakersfield congressman, the first time in history a House leader has been voted out. Johnson’s ascension came after Trump on Tuesday torpedoed the candidacy of Rep. Tom Emmer, who signed onto Johnson’s brief in the lawsuit to overturn Trump’s loss but ended up voting to certify Biden’s win after the attack on the Capitol. The former president called Emmer a “RINO” — or Republican In Name Only — on his social media platform, Truth Social, and said Emmer “wasn’t MAGA,” a reference to his Make America Great Again slogan.

“All I can tell you is that we had a productive meeting,” he said after leaving Rep. Tom Emmer’s office with several Republicans. GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy has been defeated in the last six rounds of votes. The House is reconvening to potentially vote for a seventh time for speaker.

Mr. Buchanan was joined by Representative Drew Ferguson of Georgia, another Scalise supporter who backed Mr. Jordan on Tuesday but cast his ballot on Wednesday for Mr. Scalise. Some Republicans, particularly Mr. Jordan’s staunchest supporters, have resisted such a move because it would sap momentum for the party to unite behind him — or any other Republican. In the absence of a clear path forward, there was growing discussion about holding a vote to approve giving Mr. McHenry control over the House floor until the deadlock could be broken, perhaps through Jan. 3.

Last year, Congress revamped the procedures for how a presidential win is certified, making it far harder to object in the way that Johnson and 146 other House Republicans did on Jan. 6, 2021. But there is a conservative school of thought that no legislation can control how Congress oversees the certification of a president’s win — all that counts is the Constitution’s broad granting of power to ratify the electoral college’s votes. Each portion of the package — which was broken down into separate bills — received bipartisan support. A majority of Republican members — 112 — voted against aid to Ukraine, with one member voting "present." Thirty-seven Democrats voted against aid to Israel.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For a long and frustrating third day, divided Republicans kept the speaker’s chair of the U.S. House empty Thursday, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed again and again in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough GOP votes to seize the chamber’s gavel. The House passed a resolution in support of Israel in the war against Hamas – the first measure to come to the floor after Speaker Mike Johnson was elected earlier Wednesday following three weeks without a speaker. When Scalise had been the GOP nominee for speaker earlier this month, Jordan had offered to give his nominating speech. A huge faction of Jordan’s current opposition within the GOP conference is made up of Scalise supporters, and Jordan allies are frustrated that the majority leader hasn’t done more to bring members onto Jordan’s side. House Republicans emerged from today's meeting, which went on for more than three hours, with a plan to scrap the interim speaker resolution and move forward with more floor votes for Jordan's speakership bid.

Buck said he would vote in favor of a resolution to empower McHenry as speaker pro tempore so that the conference could then focus on getting 217 votes together for one candidate. "Our plan this weekend is to get a speaker elected to the House of Representatives as soon as possible," Jordan told reporters. The House Republican Conference gathered for a closed-door meeting Friday afternoon, where they voted by secret ballot on whether Jordan should remain the nominee. Eighty-six members said Jordan should stay in the race, and 112 said he shouldn't, according to lawmakers who were in the room.