GOP outcast Liz Cheney, the former congresswoman from Wyoming, says that Republicans are in danger of “losing the House Majority.” Cheney predicts that if the GOP elects controversial Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan as House Speaker, they will lose their edge and they will “deserve it.”
Cheney is watching from the outside as the chaotic Republican conference flails in its efforts to elect a new Speaker. With Majority Leader Steve Scalise withdrawing his name from contention after winning a soft majority against Jordan in a private meeting, Jordan’s name is again floating to the top of lists.
Cheney — who calls herself a Constitutional Conservative, a GOP breed far different from MAGA reactionaries — contends that Jordan should be disqualified on Constitutional grounds, and that if the GOP fails to recognize that he’s unfit to serve, the party will be made to lie on a nail bed of its own making.
Jim Jordan was involved in Trump's conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes. If Rs nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) October 13, 2023
“Jim Jordan was involved in Trump’s conspiracy to steal the election and seize power,” Cheney writes. “He urged that Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes.”
But Jordan’s alleged role in former President Donald Trump‘s plot to retain power has so far helped him, not hurt him, if Trump’s endorsement — which Jordan has — still carries the weight it once carried in the fractured GOP.
It may also be the case that none of Jordan’s Republican colleagues will ask Jordan about his role on Jan 6, as Rep. Dan Goldman wonders aloud here: “Have any Republicans asked @Jim_Jordan about his role on Jan 6 in deciding whether to support him for speaker?”
Jim Jordan admitted he spoke to Donald Trump on January 6 and voted to overturn the election, yet he defied a subpoena to testify about his role in the insurrection.
— Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) October 11, 2023
Have any Republicans asked @Jim_Jordan about his role on Jan 6 in deciding whether to support him for speaker?
Cheney has an unlikely bedfellow in her Jordan antagonism in liberal former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who, talking about the 2015 Benghazi hearings, once said of Jordan: “I don’t know him well, I watched him and stared at him for 11 hours while he made stuff up about me. So, I don’t know him, but I’ve seen him in action.”
Clinton calls Jordan “one of the principal ringleaders of the circus that’s been created in the Republican Party for the last several years.” It’s a circus, Cheney predicts, that may not have a big tent for long.
