The House Speaker Race Is a Mess—and So Is the GOP

It’s dumpster fire time as the House GOP’s dysfunction is on full display during a time of grave danger. “I look at the world and all the threats that are out there,” Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned recently. “And what kind of message are we sending to our adversaries when we can’t govern? While we’re dysfunctional?”

That was on CNN’s State of The Union, last Sunday, Oct. 8. Since then, things have only deteriorated. As Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman—who has been closely covering the internal machinations of the GOP caucus—summed up the situation on Thursday: “The House Republican Conference is a mess... They are no closer to picking a speaker. They are a month away from a [government] shutdown. Israel is asking for aid, which needs to pass in the next few weeks. They are completely lost. And [they] have no idea how they will get out.”

Sherman’s assessment came just a few hours before Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who just one day earlier had narrowly won the House GOP’s nomination for Speaker, dropped out of the race. On Friday afternoon, Rep. Jim Jordan became the second Republican nominated in one week to be House speaker, amassing a reported 124 votes to 7-term Georgia Rep. Austin Scott’s 81 votes. But this does not mean an end to the madness is in sight.

Read more at The Daily Beast.