The Washington Post reported on Friday that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) of the House Freedom Caucus is considering running for Speaker of the House.
On Wednesday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who has served in the position since 2015, announced that he would not seek re-election in November. The congressman said he intends to remain in the position of Speaker until the end of his term.
However, according to Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen of Axios, who allegedly spoke with several inside sources, it’s unlikely that Ryan would be permitted to remain as Speaker of the House for the remainder of his time in Congress.
One source said, “Members won’t follow a lame duck, he’ll have no leverage to cut deals, and the last thing they need in this environment is 6 months of palace intrigue and everyone stabbing everyone else in the back.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) seems to be the current frontrunner for the Speakership, and has already received implied support from Ryan. Speaking to the press on Thursday, Ryan said, “I was encouraged that [Rep. Steve] Scalise this morning said that he thinks after the election that Kevin McCarthy ought to be the person to replace me after the elections.”
In an email to The Daily Wire, Rep. Jordan’s communications director offered the following statement, “attributable to Congressman Jim Jordan” himself:
What’s important is not who the next Speaker is, but what the next Speaker does. It’s time to start delivering on what we told the American people we would do. We have six more months to prove Republicans deserve to keep the majority. If and when there is a Speaker’s race, colleagues have approached me about running and that’s something I’m open to doing.
An official announcement has yet to be made.