Scalise withdraws from Speaker race: Live coverage

Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said the conference is expected to once again consider an amendment from Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) that would require 217 votes within the conference – just enough needed to secure a win on the House floor.

But in lieu of meeting such a high threshold, he said the conference may also settle on another figure beyond the current simple majority required.

“People [are] saying ‘Well you only have a little more than half the conference.’ It may go up to a higher threshold when people say, ‘Hey, you can get x percent and we’ll feel better going in.’ So those are just things that have been kicked around,” he said.

Republicans killed Roy’s proposal on Wednesday.

But on Thursday other members backed the idea of raising the threshold.

“I think it’s pointing to there being a rationale for the rule. I don’t know that the rule is written that the right levels, thresholds may need to be tweaked. And tomorrow the focus is going to be offering amendments to the rule,” Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.)

But he warned rules are “not gonna solve the problem here” as the caucus will need to reach a consensus regardless of the particular threshold.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is questioning how the small number of Republicans who voted to oust him last week has led to the ongoing turmoil among the GOP conference as its members scramble to find a new Speaker.

“What’s validating to me is how do you allow 4 percent of the conference do this to the entire country? Why would all the Democrats join with eight members?” McCarthy told reporters when asked if it was “validating” to see other Republicans face challenges in the Speakership race.

Read the full story here.

Asked if he would run for Speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry told reporters, “It’s up to the will of the conference.”

Asked if his Speaker Pro Tem powers should be expanded, he said: “I think the best thing for the institution right now is for us to have a Speaker-Designee who goes through a formal election on the floor.”

— Emily Brooks

Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho) said Thursday night he would introduce a rule change at tomorrow’s conference meeting in an effort to have a dual Scalise-Jordan ticket to lead the party.

Under Fulcher’s plan, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) would serve as speaker while Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would take his post as majority leader.

“You got to change a rule. So be it. Those are the two guys we put up. Let’s run with it. Not everybody gets what they want. But everybody gets something,” he told The Hill.

“There’s a process and it’s ugly. Has to do with Steve having to resign to open the vacancy for the majority leader, all that. And frankly, I don’t know all the detail, but we got to come up with some creative solutions. And we have two guys we’ve supported.”

Fulcher said he thinks it’s a better option than just having Scalise run on his own.

“I do. Because that doesn’t alienate the Scalise people,” he said.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Upon exiting the GOP conference meeting, House Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) had little to say to reporters.

One thing he did acknowledge: He’s ready to return to being chair of the House Financial Services Committee.

— Emily Brooks

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan told reporters that he won’t be announcing until at least tomorrow his intentions as the conference works to find a new nominee for Speaker.

He said that after McCarthy was removed from the post, he waited a day to announce his bid, and he would do the same in this case.

— Emily Brooks

GOP Whip Tom Emmer said Thursday night that he “did not expect Steve to do that.”

While dodging the question of whether he’d run for Speaker himself, he have an answer to whether there is “anyone in there who can get to 217.”

“Somebody has to,” he said.

— Emily Brooks

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) said the GOP conference right now is “all thrust in no vector right now.”

“We got to figure out what’s going on tomorrow morning and regroup,” he told reporters. “There’s a there’s a mindset that we need to go faster. There’s a mindset that we need to slow down to make sure we’re going through the process correctly and affording everyone an opportunity.”

Garcia said he’s in the second camp.

He added that should Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chose to run again for the Speakership, Garcia would back him. But he also thinks Jordan “has a math problem.”

— Mychael Schnell

The GOP conference will meet again at 10 a.m. Friday, Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) said.

— Mychael Schnell

Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) has one idea of how to pick a Speaker:

“We should just have a lottery,” he wrote on X. “If you lose, you have to be speaker.”

Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) said multiple lawmakers were encouraging Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to once again run for Speaker after House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) dropped out of the race.

“There are a number of people encouraging him — I’m one of them,” he said.

Meuser said Jordan had not yet addressed the conference during the GOP’s second meeting of the day.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) called Scalise “classy” in his decision to withdraw.

“Steve recognized that he did not have the votes, and so he stepped down. there’s no reason to prolong this process,” Murphy said.

Were House members surprised by Scalise announcement?

Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.) says he was. “I think everyone was.”

So what comes next?

“I have no earthly idea. I’m a freshman caught up in this maelstrom, we’re a ship that doesn’t have a rudder right now, and I’m thoroughly disappointed in the process.”

— Mychael Schnell

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, asked if he would run again, said: “Let the conference decide.”

It’s a stance he has maintained since being voted out of the leadership post a week ago.

— Emily Brooks

Before Scalise announced his withdrawal from the Speakership race, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke to “PBS NewsHour,” and maintained it was up to the Republicans to sort out the Speakership.

“But this is an issue right now for the Republicans to work out. It is the responsibility of the Republican majority to identify a Speaker who can both achieve 217 under the current number of people who are in the House or hold and maintain 217. And over the last week or so, the Republican majority has been unable to do either.”

“Our conference still has to come together, and it’s not there. There are still some people that have their own agendas. And I was very clear we have to have everybody put their agendas on the side and focus on what this country needs.”

— Emily Brooks

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) dropped out of the race for Speaker Thursday, just one day after he won the Republican nomination for the role.

Scalise narrowly prevailed in a secret ballot internal GOP election Wednesday, but it was clear almost immediately that he would struggle to get the 217 votes needed on the House floor.

Read the full story here.

House Republicans are meeting for the second time today, after an almost-three-hour-long gathering earlier in the day appeared to produce little progress.

The House Majority Leader’s Office officially informed members no more votes are expected tonight.

A group of House moderates are pushing to expand the powers of House Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), arguing business must resume while the conference struggles to elect a Speaker.

Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) dropped a letter by the Speaker’s office signed by members of the Republican Governance Group encouraging the drafting of a resolution that would expand the powers of the role, which otherwise appear to be limited to organizing the vote to secure a new speaker.

“It’s time for us to keep on working. So if we need more time as a group to pick the leader, then in the meantime, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Right? So let’s keep on moving business while we find the permanent person for the position,” she told reporters huddled outside of the Speaker’s office.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), who voted to nominate Jordan for Speaker, said he was planning on supporting the conference’s nominee but is not ready to back Scalise.

“I voted for Jim, I was planning on supporting whoever won the majority, but as of right now there’s some things I need to work through with Steve,” Mast told reporters Thursday evening.

Asked for specifics on the matters he has to discuss with Scalise, Mast declined to elaborate.

“It wouldn’t be helpful for me to discuss them with you,” he said.

— Mychael Schnell

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) left a meeting with Scalise indicating he is still not with the majority leader, but saying it was “productive.”

He also tried to beat back some of the pessimism circulating.

“We’ll get there. The world’s not ending. The lights are still on,” he said.

— Emily Brooks

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) says he’s holding steadfast to voting for Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as Speaker, telling reporters Thursday afternoon he doesn’t think the majority of the conference who supported him last week should acquiesce those who favored booting him.

Asked what Scalise or Jordan could do to win his support, Gimenez told reporters: “I’m voting for McCarthy. I just think it was an injustice. I don’t think [that] 96 percent needs to bow down to 4 percent.”

He also didn’t say if he planned to change his vote if it takes more than one round of floor consideration before a Speaker is elected. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”

— Aris Folley

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she raised concerns about House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s (R-La.) health at the House GOP conference meeting on Thursday.

“When you’re in a tight game, and there’s a lot of pressure happening, you don’t put an injured player or a sick player on the field. That’s not the right thing to do for that player. And it’s not the right thing to do for the team,” Greene said to reporters, paraphrasing what she recalled saying to her colleagues in the meeting.

“And, and Steve Scalise, his district elected him and if we elect a speaker, we elect a speaker, not his staff, and that’s the reality and I think that’s very important. It’s hard to talk about, but it’s an important reality,” Green continued, stressing the “tremendous compassion” she has for Scalise, noting her father died of cancer too.

“I say that about any any officeholder, they need to be at their best and they need to be at their strongest. And I say that in the greatest respect for Steve Scalise. I want to see him beat cancer. Being Speaker of the House, traveling all over the country, having one of the hardest jobs in the world – the hardest job in Congress – it’s not the time for this to happen,” she said.

Scalise has said that his treatment is going well and his doctors cleared him to pursue the Speakership.

— Sarah Fortinsky

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) said Thursday afternoon that he thinks “it’s fairly obvious to everyone” that Scalise does not have the votes.

Asked if there was nothing Scalise could do to win his support, Self said: “I’m not going to say that, but I’m voting for Jim Jordan on the first [round].”

“There have been a small group that have tried to change the trajectory of Washington, and I’m not sure we’ve made much difference this year,” he said. “So that’s where I stand and that is the problem.”

“I think that we have got to ask for new leadership, new leadership in this conference so that we can change the trajectory of Washington,” he went on to say, before denying that he asked Scalise to drop out in a recent meeting.

— Aris Folley

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who was undecided on Scalise on Wednesday, is now backing him for Speaker, the Hill can confirm.

— Emily Brooks

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) called the House GOP conference meeting a “waste of time” and said the House should take up the Speaker vote as soon as today.

“Everything’s at a gridlock. It’s a waste of time, continuing to go in there behind closed doors,” Greene said, after she left the meeting Thursday. “We are elected by the people. We represent the people. We need to be on the House floor. And we can fight this out on the House floor. I think we need to start voting.”

Greene acknowledged that no candidate currently has the support necessary to win the gavel, but she predicted that once the voting begins on the House floor, in public view, members might start exerting pressure on their representatives, changing the vote outcome.

“We go to the House floor and we get in front of the American people because they deserve to see it,” Greene said when asked about where the House GOP should go from here.

“Votes will change, and that room, when it’s a private, secret ballot, they’ll change on the House floor, when people have to have their vote in public, in front of the lights and the camera and they can get phone calls from their districts.”

“I certainly hope so,” Greene said, when asked whether she expects the vote to come to the floor today, but she added that there’s been no indication that it would. “It’s not a good look for the Republican Conference unwilling to go to the floor for a vote.”

— Sarah Fortinsky

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said he doubted the likelihood of the House having a new Speaker installed this week.  

“I don’t think so this week,” he told reporters when pressed about when the House will move forward with a vote on its next leader.

Crenshaw, who said he initially supported Jordan in the race, also said he was “disappointed in the counter arguments” against Scalise.

“It’s very emotional. I think there was, there’s complaints about the process yesterday, ‘We shouldn’t have adjourned. We should have argued in there,’” he said.

“It’s like, we’re arguing now, I mean, get over it,” he added. “Your constituents don’t care about whether we left the room or not, right? They care about the border and issues that matter to them.”

— Aris Folley

Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) said she thinks the GOP conference is nearing a point where they will need to move on from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and nominate someone else for Speaker.

“If people have objections, somebody doesn’t have the vote, we have to move on to the next person,” she told The Hill.

“I think we should move on much faster than a lot of other people think. I would have already moved on a while ago – two weeks ago! Nobody is changing their mind, let’s just be honest.”

Spartz comments came shortly after a nearly three-hour conference meeting.

“I know that Steve is trying. I’m not sure that he’s the person. We’ll see,” she added.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.), a Scalise supporter, questioned the productiveness of the nearly three-hour closed-door GOP conference meeting, telling reporters after emerging, “I don’t know that that was a net-positive conference right now.”

“We need smaller groups to get together,” he added.

He said he was not sure that the conversations helped sway any lawmakers opposed to Scalise.

“That was a therapy session in there,” Garcia later added. “If you think that therapy sessions are beneficial then I guess it could be seen as beneficial, but I don’t know that any of the hard no’s have changed their mind, and I don’t know that any of the hard no’s were convinced to even consider changing their minds.”

“I think people expressed their emotions and why they’re fed up about, you know, last week and this week,” he added.

The California Republican remarked on the fact that it was the latest in a series of closed-door meetings the GOP conference has held in recent days.

“It’s been like Festivus for the rest of us for several weeks now and we, in my opinion, need to just get down to the brass tacks and just execute, and these meetings haven’t been doing that,” he said.

— Mychael Schnell