House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, will be backing the candidacy of Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., to be the next speaker, Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., told Newsmax on Wednesday.
Jordan lost a secret ballot vote to Scalise 113-99 earlier Wednesday, but it was unknown if Scalise could get the 217 votes needed to become speaker. House Republicans are trying to avoid a repeat of its selection of Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker in January, when it took 15 ballots for him to secure the speaker's gavel.
Meuser told "American Agenda" he was supporting Jordan because "he would bring unity and some new fresh leadership to our conference and into the House itself."
"But now it turns out that Jim Jordan, because he's an enormously honorable person who puts country and certainly the party ahead of himself, has agreed to be supportive of Steve Scalise," Meuser said. "We'll see if there's going to be a vote today. I haven't heard definitively that things were going to be put off, but they might be just because there are a few members that are still very loyal to Jim.
"But I think with Jim's encouragement, there's a pretty good chance we'll end up deriving the votes for Steve and we will come together and move forward."
Meuser said it's important for House Republicans to move forward because there is so much work to do in bringing a budget together and putting the spotlight back on the crises created by the Biden administration's policies.
"Because Jim Jordan received as many votes as he has, and has some great support and respect, as does Steve Scalise, I think we will come together and elect a speaker on the House floor and then deal with the many issues that we need to deal with, and the many crises created by the Biden White House that is asleep at the wheel when it comes to our national security," Meuser said.
"In fact, worse than being asleep at the wheel, just being damaging to our southern border, to our energy reserves. Certainly, the occurrences in Israel, the continued strange support that they have for Iran and dealing with the Ukrainian crisis. We've got to get to these things, along with a budget."
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