Donald Trump is officially backing the brash, longtime loyalist and founding member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, the Ohio congressman Jim Jordan, to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker when voting takes place next week.
“Congressman Jim Jordan has been a STAR long before making his very successful journey to Washington, DC, representing Ohio’s 4th Congressional District,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media platform, with his some of his signature inflammatory flourishes, early on Friday.
He added: “He will be a GREAT Speaker of the House & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
The announcement came hours after the Texas congressman Troy Nehls said on Thursday night that the former US president had decided to back Jordan’s bid and after Trump said he would be open to serving as interim leader himself if Republicans could not settle on a successor following McCarthy’s stunning ouster.
Trump, the current Republican presidential frontrunner for the 2024 election, has used the leadership vacuum on Capitol Hill to further demonstrate his control over his party and drag it further to the right.
House Republicans are deeply fractured and some have been asking him to lead them in the lower congressional chamber, a seemingly fanciful suggestion that he also promoted after inflaming the divisions that forced out McCarthy as speaker.
“Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race. He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party,” Nehls wrote late on Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In an interview later with the Associated Press, Nehls, who had been encouraging Trump to run for the post himself, said the ex-president instead wanted Jordan.
“After him thinking about it and this and that … he said he really is in favor of getting behind Jim Jordan,” Nehls said.
Jordan is one of two leading candidates maneuvering for speaker along with the congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Both are trying to lock in the 218 votes required to win the job and need the support of both the far-right and moderate factions of the party. It’s unclear whether Trump’s endorsement will force Scalise, the current GOP majority leader, out of the race, or if either can reach the threshold.
Indeed, Nehls said that if no current candidate succeeds in earning the support needed to win, he would once again turn to Trump. “Our conference is divided. Our country is broken. I don’t know who can get to 218,” he said in the interview.
Trump earlier in the day had been in talks to visit Capitol Hill next week ahead of a speakership vote that could happen as soon as Wednesday, according to three people familiar with the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement. Trump confirmed the trip to Fox News Digital and said he would travel on Tuesday to meet with Republicans.
The trip would have been Trump’s first to the Capitol since leaving office and since his supporters attacked the building in a bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on 6 January 2021. Trump has been indicted in both Washington DC and Georgia over his efforts to overturn the results of the election, which he lost to his Democratic party challenger, Joe Biden.
Jordan is one of Trump’s biggest champions in Washington DC and has been leading spurious investigations into prosecutors who have charged the former president. He was also part of a group of Republicans who worked with Trump to overturn his defeat, ahead of January 6. Scalise has also worked closely with Trump over the years.
Others are waiting in the wings potentially to contest for the speakership, including the Oklahoma representative Kevin Hern, who as chair of the Republican study committee leads the largest faction of Republicans in the chamber.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
