“Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run.” And there are also three Republicans running for House Speaker, well, two and a half. There’s Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and Kevin Hern. Hern is a kinda, sorta maybe candidate. All three were going to debate with Bret Baier tonight and then…kaplowey! The plan blew up. Daily Beast:
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan have decided to call off the televised Fox News event featuring GOP candidates vying for the House Speaker’s gavel, CNN reported on Friday. […]
CNN reporter Melanie Zanona, though, reported that several House GOP members were incensed over the decision to make the speaker’s race into a made-for-Fox televised debate, noting that “several of them have already communicated those frustrations to the speaker candidates.”
According to Zanona, one lawmaker called it “insanity” while claiming “people are pissed,” while another complained that it would turn the process of replacing McCarthy into a “circus.” Others predicted that due to the anger from other members, it was likely that the Fox forum would get canceled.
With House Republicans expressing second thoughts about voting for the candidates participating in this “horrible idea,” Jordan then suggested that they may just scrap the televised debate.
“Rep. Jim Jordan now wants to meet w/ conference before Fox debate, so either debate gets pushed OR forum gets moved up,” Zanona tweeted. “‘Mr. Jordan is always happy to share his plan for the country, but he believes it is crucial to meet with the GOP conference before the event,’ a spox tells me.” […]
The now-canceled Fox sit-down had come on the heels of Fox News star Sean Hannity and Donald Trump endorsing Jordan for the speakership.
The GOP caucus is currently scheduled to hold a candidates forum on Tuesday—which Trump may possibly attend—before moving to a closed-door vote Wednesday. It is undetermined when the fight for the speakership will hit the House floor.
The Republican party, leadership you can depend on. Remember when that was a slogan, for real? Now it’s a total joke. Or, wait, let’s modify it: leadership that you can depend on to do nothing except fight amongst itself. There, I fixed it.
And if you’ve got Fox News and Trump endorsing Jordan, I would say that that means Jordan will probably win. Why is Fox News endorsing Jordan? I can only assume for ratings, what else? Maybe the Murdochs have decided that documenting the collapse of the Republican party in real time will make for good viewing. And they might be right. Disaster movies do surprisingly well at the box office, so apparently Rupert Murdoch, the Irwin Allen of political news shows, has decided that Jordan’s his boy.
Swell. Popcorn futures should rise as well, call your broker.
Fox is probably crushed. I’ll bet they were banking on a short SERIES of “reality” TV – “Who’s Gonna Be Speaker?” You’re right that it probably would have been ratings gold. And hey, there was that Dominion payout Fox had to make and they are staring down much worse with Smartmatic so they could use a new hit tee vee show, and since Trump would be part of it? Oh my how the ratings revenue would have soared!
Too bad. I was really looking forward to the part of the debate where Trump called in live.
This is what a party run by fascist frat boys looks like.