U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, talks to reporters as he announces he is ending his campaign to be the next House speaker after a Republican meeting at the Capitol in Washington, on October 12, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Representative Steve Scalise, who Republicans nominated to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives, dropped out of the race on Thursday as the party failed to resolve its divisions, prolonging the leadership crisis in the chamber.

Mr. Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, had secured his party’s nomination to replace ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy but was still short of the 217 votes needed to be elected on the House floor, as several of his fellow Republicans said they would not support him.

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Republicans could afford no more than four defections as they control the House by a narrow 221-212 margin if they wanted to end the House’s leaderless bout that has already lasted nine days.

“I just shared with my colleagues that I was withdrawing my name as a candidate for our speaker designee,” Mr. Scalise told reporters.

“If you look at over the last few weeks, if you look at where our conference is, there is still work to be done… There are still some people that have their own agendas.”

The Republican infighting has left the chamber unable to act to support Israel’s war against Palestinian militants of Hamas and pass government spending bills before funding runs out on November 17.

Republicans had been hoping to avoid a repeat of the embarrassing spectacle that occurred in January, when hardline conservatives forced Mr. McCarthy to endure 15 floor votes over four days before winning the gavel.

‘At a standstill’

Several Republicans earlier said they would stick with Scalise’s rival Jim Jordan, who lost out in a secret-ballot vote on Wednesday. Mr. Jordan has encouraged his supporters to vote for Mr. Scalise, according to a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While Mr. McCarthy was the first speaker to be removed in a formal vote, the last two Republicans to hold the job wound up leaving under pressure from party hardliners.

Mr. Scalise, 58, gained near legendary status within Republican circles by surviving a severe gunshot wound after a gunman opened fire during practice for a charity baseball game in 2017.

He also commands widespread respect as a veteran legislator, who has spent years in party leadership positions.

But Mr. Scalise also faces new health concerns as he undergoes treatment for multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, which some Mr. Jordan supporters cited as a reason not to vote for him.

Mr. Jordan was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and appeared to be the favorite of populist minded hardliners.

Mr. Trump in an interview with Fox News Radio earlier on Thursday said he did not object to Mr. Scalise as speaker.

“Steve is a man that is in serious trouble from the standpoint of his cancer. I mean, he’s got to get better for himself,” he said in an interview with Fox News Radio.

Former President Donald Trump is officially backing Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, House Judiciary Committee chairman and long-time Donald Trump defender, to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.

“Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, D.C., representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social site shortly after midnight Friday. “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”

The announcement came hours after Texas Rep. Troy Nehls said on October 5 that Mr. Trump had decided to back Mr. Jordan’s bid and after Mr. Trump had been in talks to visit Capitol Hill next week as Republicans debate who should be the next speaker following Mr. McCarthy’s stunning ouster.

The trip would have been Donald Trump’s first to the Capitol since leaving office and since his supporters attacked the building in a bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on January 6, 2021. Mr. Trump has been indicted in both Washington and Georgia over his efforts to overturn the results of the election, which he lost to President Joe Biden.

Donald Trump, the current GOP Presidential front-runner, has used the leadership vacuum on the Hill to further demonstrate his control over the Republican Party. House Republicans are deeply fractured and some have been asking him to lead them — a seemingly fanciful suggestion that he also promoted after inflaming the divisions that forced out Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.

Mr. Trump had been telling people in recent days that he preferred Jim Jordan for the post, according to two Republicans familiar with his thinking and granted anonymity to discuss it. But it was unclear whether he intended to announce it before Mr. Nehls’ tweet.

“Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race. He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party,” Mr. Nehls wrote late Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

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In an interview with The Associated Press, Mr. Nehls, who had been encouraging Donald Trump himself to run for job, said the former President had made up his mind.

“After him thinking about it and this and that … he said he really is in favour of getting behind Jim Jordan,” Mr. Nehls said. “He believes Jim Jordan is right for the job.”

Jim Jordan is one of the two leading candidates manoeuvering for Speaker along with Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Both are trying to lock in the 218 votes required to win the job and need the support of both the far-right and moderate factions of the party. It’s unclear whether a Trump endorsement will force Mr. Scalise, the current GOP majority leader, out of the race.

Mr. Nehls said that if no current candidate succeeds in earning the support needed to win, he would once again turn to Mr. Trump. “Our conference is divided. Our country is broken. I don’t know who can get to 218,” he said in an interview.

Earlier, Donald Trump had told Fox News Digital that he was heading to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Republicans. Three people familiar with the matter disclosed the talks about visiting the Capitol to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement. Mr. Nehls, however, said it was unlikely Mr. Trump would make the trip.

Mr. Trump would most likely have attended a closed-door candidate forum that Republicans plan to hold Tuesday evening ahead of a Speakership vote that could happen as soon as on Wednesday, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Jordan is also one of Donald Trump’s biggest champions on the Hill and has been leading the investigations into prosecutors who have charged the former President. He was also part of a group of Republicans who worked with Mr. Trump to overturn his defeat ahead of January 6. Mr. Scalise has also worked closely with Mr. Trump over the years.

One of the people familiar with the planning had cautioned earlier on Thursday that, if Mr. Trump did go ahead with the visit, he would be there to talk with Republican lawmakers and not to pitch himself for the role.

Still, Mr. Trump continued to stoke speculation, telling Fox News Digital on Thursday that he would accept a short-term role as Speaker — for anywhere from 30 to 90 days — if another candidate doesn’t have the votes to win.

“I have been asked to speak as a unifier because I have so many friends in Congress,” he told the outlet. “If they don’t get the vote, they have asked me if I would consider taking the Speakership until they get somebody longer-term, because I am running for President.”

In a social media post earlier in the day, he added that he “will do whatever is necessary to help with the Speaker of the House selection process, short term, until the final selection of a GREAT REPUBLICAN SPEAKER is made – A Speaker who will help a new, but highly experienced President, ME, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The Republican conference is filled with members generally supportive of Donald Trump, but whether they’d back him to serve as Speaker remained to be seen. The role is a demanding position — effectively running the Capitol and dealing with hundreds of lawmakers — and requires an attention to the arcane details of legislating that Mr. Trump showed little interest in even when he was President.

While he is dominating his GOP Presidential rivals, Mr. Trump is also still travelling to early primary states to campaign and has been spending much of his time focussed on the four criminal indictments and several civil cases he is facing.

While there is no requirement that a person be elected to the House to serve as Speaker, every one of the 55 Speakers the House has elected has been a member of the chamber. From time to time, lawmakers have thrown their votes to those outside of Congress, often as a protest against the candidates running.

Mr. Trump helped Mr. McCarthy win the Speakership in January after 15 rounds of voting. But he exhorted Republicans to impeach Joe Biden and to reject deals that McCarthy negotiated. Last month, he urged the right flank to support a government shutdown if Republicans did not win deep spending cuts, declaring on social media that the GOP “lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be BLAMED for the Budget Shutdown. Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed, in this case, Crooked (as Hell!) Joe Biden!”

Kevin McCarthy ultimately moved to keep the government open for 45 days without the cuts demanded by hard-right conservatives. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and long-time Donald Trump ally, cited that decision as reason to move to depose the Speaker.

Among those who had pushed Mr. Trump for Speaker was Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a long-time Trump ally who didn’t vote to remove Mr. McCarthy. She posted on X that she believed “he would take the job.”

Mr. Nehls, the Texas Republican who was among the first to promote Mr. Trump for the job, said before his Thursday evening conservation with Mr. Trump that he’d been contacted “by multiple Members of Congress willing to support and offer nomination speeches for Donald J. Trump to be Speaker of the House.” “Next week,” he wrote on X, “is going to be HUGE.”