House Republicans were working “behind the scenes” on Monday, trying to pull together some good candidates for Speaker of the House, after Jim Jordan got his ass handed to him in three Speaker votes last week. There were eight or nine GQP candidates, and Tom Emmer was considered to be the best or the most reasonable for the majority of the caucus. Emmer got the majority of votes within the Republican caucus around noon on Tuesday, meaning that Emmer was officially the GQP’s new Speaker candidate, and they would hold a floor vote at some point in the next 24 hours. Soon after Emmer “won” his party’s nomination for Speaker, he met with Republican leaders in some kind of closed-door meeting. Emmer walked out of the meeting after a few hours, and now he has withdrawn from the Speaker race. It’s all completely bonkers.

Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid for speaker on Tuesday hours after securing his divided party’s nomination, after a swift backlash from the right, including former President Donald J. Trump, left his candidacy in shambles.

Mr. Emmer’s abrupt exit signaled that Republicans were as far as ever from breaking a deadlock that has left Congress leaderless and paralyzed for three weeks. It made Mr. Emmer the third Republican this month to be chosen to lead the party, only to have his bid collapse in a seemingly endless cycle of G.O.P. grievances, personality conflicts and ideological rifts. Republicans have now succeeded in repudiating all three of their top leaders over the past few weeks. The chamber has been frozen for the better part of a month as Republicans feud over who should be in charge, even as wars rage overseas and a government shutdown approaches.

Mr. Emmer began Tuesday with a scant victory, winning an internal party nominating contest by a vote of 117 to 97 over a right-wing rival, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana. The margin reflected that House Republicans were still deeply at odds.

Then immediately after Mr. Emmer’s nomination, about two dozen right-wing Republicans indicated that they would not vote for him on the floor, denying him the majority he would need to succeed in a vote of the full House. And as he met with holdouts to try to win them over, the former president issued a scathing statement on social media expressing vehement opposition to Mr. Emmer, calling him a “Globalist RINO” — short for “Republican in name only” — whose elevation would be a “tragic mistake.”

“I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them. He never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement, or the breadth and scope of MAGA—MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

[From The NY Times]

“Globalist RINO” huh. That’s like ten different dog-whistles. This just underlines the fact that Trump wants a “loyalist” installed as Speaker, so that no matter what happens in the 2024 election, the MAGA Speaker will subvert democracy and ratf–k the election results. How many more days/weeks does this have to go on before a handful of Republicans go to Hakeem Jeffries and beg him to make a deal? Like, from what I understand of House procedure, that’s the only reasonable solution at this point. Democrats are in lockstep behind Minority Leader Jeffries, meaning he has 212 votes guaranteed. That means he would only need to “flip” five Republicans to become Speaker. Enough with empowering the craziest lunatics in the GQP caucus – the handful of moderate Republicans should reclaim their power, make personal power-sharing agreements with Democrats and switch their votes to Jeffries.

PS… House Republicans worked for hours after Emmer dropped out and now they’ve nominated Mike Johnson from Louisiana to be their Speaker candidate.

Update: Mike Johnson is now Speaker of the House. This is a disaster.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.