House Republicans drop Jim Jordan as their nominee for speaker, stumbling back to square one

GOP drops Jordan as House speaker nominee, leaving party in turmoil. After Rep. Jim Jordan failed to win a majority in a third ballot for House speaker, Republicans are left dejected, frustrated and sinking deeper into turmoil. With no one able to win a GOP majority, the House is unable to function and the stalemate has shut down the U.S. House.

Republicans abruptly dropped Rep. Jim Jordan on Friday as their nominee for House speaker, making the decision during a closed-door session after the hard-edged ally of Donald Trump failed badly on a third ballot for the gavel.

The outcome left Republicans dejected, frustrated and sinking deeper into turmoil, another week without a House speaker bordering on a full-blown crisis. House Republicans have no realistic or working plan to unite the fractured GOP majority, elect a new speaker and return to the work of Congress that has been languishing since hard-liners ousted Kevin McCarthy at the start of the month.

Afterward, Mr. Jordan said simply of his colleagues, “We put the question to them, they made a different decision.”

The hard-charging Judiciary Committee chairman said House Republicans now need to come together and "figure out who our speaker is going to be."

Their majority control floundering, Republicans left the private session blaming one another for the divisions they have created. Next steps were highly uncertain, as a wide range of Republican lawmakers started pitching themselves for speaker.

But it appears no one at present can win a GOP majority, leaving the House without a speaker and unable to function for the foreseeable future, an embarrassing blow to a central U.S. seat of government.

“We’re in a very bad place right now,” McCarthy said.