House Speaker: GOP fails to unite ahead of today’s vote – live updates

By noon, Reps. Tom Emmer, Austin Scott, Bryon Donalds, Kevin Hern, Jack Bergman, Mike Johnson, Pete Sessions, Gary Palmer and Dan Meuser had all announced their intention to run for the speakership.

Potential speakers will now begin the process of calling colleagues to try to drum up support before the House GOP decides which nominee to support in a closed-door conference.

When asked about the speaker's race Monday in New Hampshire, former President Donald Trump said, “There's only one person who can take it all the way. Do you know who he is? Jesus Christ. If Jesus came down and said, “I want to be a speaker,” he would. Other than that, I haven't seen anyone who can vouch for it.”

House speaker impasse continues with the GOP failing to coalesce around a nominee and eight candidates still running.

On Monday night, the GOP spent hours behind closed doors at a candidate forum, but emerged without a clear candidate.

Nine candidates attended the meeting: Representatives Byron Donalds; Mike Johnson? Jack Bergman? Kevin Hern? Dan Meuser? Gary Palmer? Pete Sessions? Austin Scott? Pete Sessions? and Tom Emmer.

But Mr. Meuser dropped out early in the meet, narrowing the field to eight.

While some Republicans struck an optimistic note that they would have a speaker by the end of Tuesday, it was clear that there was no real front-runner.

Emer is seen as the favorite but faces opposition from Donald Trump's allies.

Rep. Matt Gaetz dismissed the idea that he's backing Speaker candidate Tom Emmer behind the scenes.

“I am uncommitted to any speaker candidates at this time. I have encouraged all of our speaker candidates to support President Trump, contact him and seek his advice,” he said, according to Politico.

In any other context, the idea of ​​an MP halfway through his second term running for speaker would be seen as preposterous. But since a handful of opponents to Kevin McCarthy's speaker bid nominated Byron Donalds, he has become a darling of the hard-right GOP. Mike Johnson, for his part, is a staunch opponent of abortion, which could endear him to conservatives, but it also means Democrats could connect frontline Republicans with his ideology.

But actually, racing this speaker is really fun. Whether one of the nine wins or someone else, the next speaker will immediately sign his death note, which is probably why some other stronger Republicans are dropping out of this race.

Being a Republican speaker of the House of Representatives is an inherently lousy job that inevitably leads to shame. A big reason for this is that a significant portion of the House Democratic Party sees the difficult task of governing as antithetical to conservative ideology.

And there's a lot of governing to be done in the coming weeks. Once a speaker is sworn in, the highest task will be keeping the government open. The continuing resolution passed by Mr McCarthy late last month expires in 25 days and the lack of a speaker means the House cannot pass any spending bills. House Republicans want to avoid passing a “clean” continuing resolution again, as they want to include spending cuts and oppose passing an overall spending bill, preferring to pass 12 individual spending bills.

For those who may have forgotten, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filed his vacate motion, especially since Mr. McCarthy passed the clean bill to keep the government running.

The second order of business would be to help US allies like Israel and Ukraine. Republicans are likely to support spending to help Israel, given the country's strong support among evangelical Christians because of its crucial role in end-times theology.

After Jordan lost the speakership nomination in an internal vote among House Republicans on Friday, Mr. Donalds announced to X that he would enter the race to become the next nominee. Writing that he aims to “become the first African-American Speaker, the first Speaker from the great state of Florida, and the next Speaker of the 118th Congress.”

Mr. Donalds represents Florida's 19th congressional district, which includes Fort Myers and Cape Coral on the southwest coast.

The 44-year-old is the middle child of three children raised by a single mother. Born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Mr. Donalds later moved to Naples, in the southern part of the district he now represents, attending Florida State University, graduating in 2002 with a degree in finance and marketing, according to Naples Daily News.

Thomas “Tom” Emmer has proven himself to be a traditional and reliable conservative, chairing the National Republican Congressional Committee for four years and electing the House majority in 2022.

The 62-year-old was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2015 to represent Minnesota's 6th district. He serves on the Financial Services Committee as well as two subcommittees, one on Capital Markets and the other on Digital Assets, FinTech and Inclusion.

Before taking national office, Mr. Emmer served in the Minnesota State House of Representatives for six years during which he made an unsuccessful bid for governor – losing by less than 10,000 votes.

He has been married to his wife Jacqueline for 37 years and the couple has seven children.

Mr Emmer is one of the lesser-known members of his parliamentary group because he is relatively quiet compared to some of his far-right colleagues.

Notably, while many Republicans predicted a “red wave” during the last US mid-term elections, Mr Emmer was cautious. “Don't count the curtains,” he said then.

But despite appearing more relaxed, Mr. Emmer's legislative record is deeply loyal to his party on almost all fronts.

Mr. Emmer has supported legislation that supports parental rights, loosens environmental protections, is anti-abortion and eases gun restrictions. He supported the filing of articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden and challenged the scientific evidence on the climate crisis.

He voiced his support for former President Donald Trump when he faced federal charges over the January 6 riots at the US Capitol.

“How did I lose? This is a mess,” said Mr. Jordan of Day. “Some of us are here to really serve the American people. All I want to do is get Congress back to work so I can shut it down again.”

Day was joined by Bowen Yang who plays representative George Santos, who then stepped in to try to “cheer up” Mr. Jordan.

Yang's Mr Santos was seen walking around holding a baby that “no one seems to know” why he has it, before saying: “I just wanted to say how sorry I am, but I want you to know that I voted for you and I got it. so does Shoshanna Loggins.”

The House has now been without a speaker for almost three weeks, and Mr McCaul noted that there are many crises, such as the conflict between Israel and Hamas, that the House is unable to address.

“We have very important issues at the moment with war and peace and we cannot deal with an aid package or my resolution condemning Hamas and supporting Israel,” Mr McCall told the ABC. “We can't even pass a resolution condemning Hamas.”

Mr McCaul declined to endorse any of the nine candidates, saying only that the chamber needed “a speaker in the chair”.

Speaker candidate Tom Emmer shared a quote on former President Donald Trump's X referring to their phone call over the weekend.

Mr Emmer, the minority whip, has sought to dispel the narrative that he was anti-Trump and is now trying to reassure his caucus that he has a good “working relationship” with Trump.

“If my colleagues elect me Speaker of the House, I look forward to continuing our strong working relationship,” Mr Emer wrote to X on Monday.