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Maya Yang (now); Chris Stein and Adam Gabbatt (earlier)

Jim Jordan says he’s ‘going back to work’ after losing secret ballot for House speaker candidacy – as it happened

Jim Jordan Joe Biden Donald Trump United States Israel Kenneth Chesebro Republican Republican Party Hamas Ukraine
Jim Jordan dropped by Republicans as nominee for speaker of the House
Jim Jordan dropped by Republicans as nominee for speaker of the House Photograph: Branden Camp/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Closing Summary

It is now 6pm in Washington DC where Jim Jordan lost his status as the Republican speaker nominee. With Republicans essentially back to square one, here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:

  • Jim Jordan lost a secret ballot held by House Republicans, which removes him as speaker-designate. Steve Scalise of Louisiana said that Republicans would start over on Monday.

  • Following the secret GOP ballot, Jim Jordan said on live TV, “I’m going to go back to work.” In reference to who the next speaker would be, Jordan said, “Let’s work out who that individual is,” and added, “It’s time to unite.”

  • House Republicans have set Sunday 12pm as the deadline to file as a speaker candidate. A candidate forum for the speaker will be held on Monday at 6.30pm and a secret ballot leadership election will be held on Tuesday at 9am. It remains unclear when a floor vote for speaker will be.

  • Mike Pence has called on House Republicans to “decide what team you want to be on” as Republicans revert back to square one following their inability to decide on a speaker. “With everything that’s happening in the world … the American people are looking to Republicans in the Congress to stop fighting with each other and start fighting for them,” Pence told SiriusXM.

  • White House spokesperson Andrew Bates has commented on the latest House speaker vote, urging House Republicans to “end their chaotic infighting and their competitions to out-extreme one another”. He went on to call upon House Republicans to “join President Biden in working on urgent priorities for American families shared by both parties in Congress”.

  • Tom Emmer, a Minnesota congressman who is the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House, will run for speaker, Punchbowl News reports. Before Kevin McCarthy’s removal from the speaker’s post, the Washington Post reported that conservative hardliners were in favor of nominating Emmer for the chamber’s top job.

  • Oklahoma’s Republican representative Kevin Hern has announced he will run for House speaker. Hern, the chair of the Republican study committee (the House’s largest caucus among Republicans), said: “We need a different type of leader who has a proven track record of success.”

  • The judge overseeing Donald Trump and his family members’ civil fraud trial in New York City fined the former president $5,000 for a post he determined violated a gag order, but did not order him to jail – yet. Judge Arthur Engoron avoided holding Trump in contempt, for now, but reserved the right to do so – and possibly even put him in jail – if he continued to violate a gag order barring parties in the case from personal attacks on court staff, the Associated Press reports.

  • Donald Trump has made it clear he won’t be at the third Republican primary debate in Miami on 8 November. But he will be in the city in his role as spoiler, hosting an open-air rally at the same time that his rivals for the party’s presidential nomination are taking the stage.

  • Kenneth Chesebro, a former lawyer for Donald Trump, has accepted a plea deal to resolve felony charges against him. This marks a significant development for the Georgia election subversion case.

That’s it from us as we close the blog for the day. Thank you for following along.

Updated

The Supreme Court on Friday kept a Missouri law on hold that bars police from enforcing federal gun laws, rejecting an emergency appeal from the state.

The Associated Press reports:

The 2019 law was ruled unconstitutional by a district judge but allowed to remain in effect. A federal appeals court then blocked enforcement while the state appeals the district court ruling.

Missouri had wanted the law to be in effect while the court fight plays out.

Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to side with Missouri on Friday.

The law would impose a fine of $50,000 on an officer who knowingly enforces federal gun laws that don’t match up with state restrictions.

Federal laws without similar Missouri laws include registration and tracking requirements and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders.

The court expanded gun rights in a 2022 decision authored by Thomas. It is hearing arguments next month in the first case stemming from last year’s ruling. An appeals court invalidated a federal law that aims to keep guns away from people facing domestic violence restraining orders.

Long-shot Republican presidential candidate Perry Johnson has announced his decision to suspend his presidential campaign.

On Friday, the Michigan businessman released a statement, saying, “With no oppurtunity to share my vision on the debate stage, I have decided at this time, suspending my campaign is the right thing to do.”

Johnson criticized the Republican National Committee and its “corrupt leaders” with “authoritarian powers.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the people should decide the next president of the United States, not the head of the RNC and her cronies,” he added.

Johnson said that he is only suspending his campaign, rather than withdrawing entirely and plans to keep a small political team on staff “in the event the dynamics of the race change.”

Tennessee’s Republican representative Mark Green is not runnning for speaker, Green’s office told Punchbowl News.

Updated

With Jim Jordan out of the speaker race, here is an explainer by the Guardian’s Sam Levine on why he lost and what happens next:

Why did Republicans oppose Jordan?

Several of the members who are opposed to Jordan are members of the House appropriations committee, who are reportedly opposed to the way Jordan has embraced a hard line on spending cuts and shutting down the government.

There is also reportedly bad blood over the way Jordan and his allies treated Steve Scalise. Scalise previously beat Jordan to win the conference’s nomination to be speaker, but withdrew his bid after it became clear he couldn’t get enough votes to win in the House. Some Scalise allies think Jordan didn’t do enough to rally Republicans around Scalise.

What happens next?

No one knows. Even as it was clear that Jordan had no clear path to becoming the speaker, no Republican emerged to seriously challenge him. Republicans currently have a Sunday noon deadline to announce their candidacy ahead of another round of speakership talks.

For the full explainer, click here:

Mike Pence has called on House Republicans to “decide what team you want to be on” as Republicans revert back to square one following their inability to decide on a speaker.

Speaking on SiriusXM, the presidential candidate said:

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined eight Republicans partnering with every Democrat in Congress to throw out a Republican speaker of the House. All roads lead back to the eight members of what I call the chaos caucus who set all this into motion.”

“With everything that’s happening in the world … the American people are looking to Republicans in the Congress to stop fighting with each other and start fighting for them.”

House Republicans have set Sunday 12pm as the deadline to file as a speaker candidate.

A candidate forum for the speaker will be held on Monday at 6.30pm and a secret ballot leadership election will be held on Tuesday at 9am.

It remains unclear when a floor vote for speaker will be.

Updated

Texas’s Republican representative Chip Roy said that it was a “mistake for the Republican conference to just walk away from arguably the most popular Republican in the Republican party.”

Speaking to CNN’s Manu Raju, Roy said, “We shouldn’t have done that,” adding, “I think having the American people be able to see how we are wrestling with the tough decisions and what we’re trying to do, and doing it with intensity and doing it because we care about this country.”

Former speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is throwing his weight behind GOP whip Tom Emmer’s bid to replace him, Punchbowl News reports:

It’s a boost for Emmer, but not necessarily a decisive one. McCarthy also supported Jim Jordan, and look how that turned out. Meanwhile, Punchbowl reports that Emmer is among a fairly sizable group of Republicans running for the House speaker post, or considering it:

They’ll be having a busy weekend.

Judge fines Trump $5,000 over post he said violated gag order

The judge overseeing Donald Trump and his family members’ civil fraud trial in New York City fined the former president $5,000 for a post he determined violated a gag order, but did not order him to jail – yet.

Here’s more on that, from the Associated Press:

Judge Arthur Engoron avoided holding Trump in contempt, for now, but reserved the right to do so – and possibly even put him in jail – if he continued to violate a gag order barring parties in the case from personal attacks on court staff.

Engoron said in a written ruling that he is “way beyond the ‘warning’ stage” but decided on a nominal fine because Trump’s lawyers said the website’s retention of the post was inadvertent and was a “first-time violation”.

Earlier, an incensed Engoron said the failure to delete the post from the website was a “blatant violation” of his 3 October order, which required Trump to delete the offending message.

Trump lawyer Christopher Kise blamed the “very large machine” of Trump’s presidential campaign for allowing his deleted social media post to remain on his website, calling it an unintentional oversight.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, wasn’t in court Friday. He’d returned to the trial Tuesday and Wednesday after attending the first three days in early October, but skipped the rest of the week.

Updated

Speaking of people who are running for office, Donald Trump has made it clear he won’t be at the third Republican primary debate in Miami on 8 November.

But he will be in the city in his role as spoiler, hosting an open-air rally at the same time that his rivals for the party’s presidential nomination are taking the stage.

Trump’s campaign announced Friday that the former president would be appearing at Ted Hendricks stadium in Hialeah, 10 miles from the Adrienne Arsht performing arts center in Miami where the Republican National Committee debate will take place.

The former president is the runaway leader for the nomination, despite his worsening legal problems. He skipped the first debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in August, and last month’s second event in Simi Valley, California, although he still emerged as the most-talked-about candidate despite his absence.

Trump has called for the RNC to cancel the Miami debate, arguing that he’s so far ahead of his challengers as to make it meaningless, and that a failure to do so would be an admission that “national Republicans are more concerned about helping Joe Biden”.

Updated

Top House Republican deputy Tom Emmer to run for speaker - report

Tom Emmer, a Minnesota congressman who is the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House, will run for speaker, Punchbowl News reports:

Before Kevin McCarthy’s removal from the speaker’s post, the Washington Post reported that conservative hardliners were in favor of nominating him for the chamber’s top job.

Updated

Jim Jordan started out the day by hinting that the House would have to stick around through the weekend to vote on his candidacy for speaker.

Hours later, the GOP stripped him of the party’s nomination in a closed-door meeting. No more weekend votes for them.

As CNN reports, the next phase of the speaker’s race will play out starting Monday with a candidates’ forum, but you can bet that Kevin Hern and other Republicans who throw their hat into the ring will spend this weekend campaigning within the party:

Updated

Republican majority leader Steve Scalise, who was briefly the party’s nominee for speaker before withdrawing when he concluded he would not win majority support, will not run for the post again, Punchbowl News reports:

Oklahoma's Kevin Hern to run for House speaker

Oklahoma’s Republican representative Kevin Hern has announced he will run for House speaker.

Hern, the chair of the Republican study committee (the House’s largest caucus among Republicans), said:

I just voted for my good friend Jim Jordan to stay as our speaker designate, but the conference has determined that he will no longer hold that title. We just had two speaker designates go down. We must unify and do it fast.

I’ve spoken to every member of the conference over the last few weeks. We need a different type of leader who has a proven track record of success, which is why I’m running for speaker of the House.

Updated

Jim Jordan says he's 'going back to work' after losing candidacy

Following the secret GOP ballot, Jim Jordan said on live TV, “I’m going to go back to work.”

In reference to who the next speaker would be, Jordan said, “Let’s work out who that individual is,” and added, “It’s time to unite.”

Updated

White House calls on Republicans to 'end their chaotic infighting'

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates has commented on the latest House speaker vote, urging House Republicans to “end their chaotic infighting and their competitions to out-extreme one another.”

“While Joe Biden fights to advance bipartisan legislation that will protect our national security interests - including in Israel and Ukraine - provide humanitarian assistance for innocent civilians in Gaza, deliver critical border funding, compete with China, and grow our economy, House Republicans are somehow still fighting with each other,” said Bates.

He went on to call upon House Republicans to “join President Biden in working on urgent priorities for American families shared by both parties in Congress.”

Updated

The former House speaker Kevin McCarthy said that Republicans will now “have to go back to the drawing board”.

“I’m concerned where we go from here,” added McCarthy.

Updated

Jim Jordan loses secret Republican ballot, removing him as speaker candidate

Jim Jordan lost a secret ballot held by House Republicans which removes him as speaker designate, said the Republican Florida representative Kat Cammack.

Steve Scalise of Louisiana said that Republicans will start over on Monday.

Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman reports that the vote margin was large, according to sources familiar with the vote.

Updated

House Republicans are currently voting in a secret ballot election on whether Jim Jordan should stay or drop out of the speakership race.

According to CNN’s Manu Raju, Pennsylvania’s Republican representative Brian Fitzpatrick said that if Jordan chooses to opt for a fourth round of votes, then he will lose even more votes.

Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy has told reporters that the Republican conference is “in a very bad place right now.”

The day so far

Jim Jordan has lost his third election to become House speaker, after 25 of his fellow Republicans opposed him – five more than when the vote was first held on Tuesday. The House GOP has retired for a behind-closed-doors meeting, where a source says conservative Freedom caucus members want to hold a vote on renominating Jordan, though that would appear to be detrimental to him, since he keeps losing support. Thus, the House speaker’s race is far from finished, but here’s something different that may actually have been resolved: the criminal charges against former Donald Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who has accepted a plea deal from Georgia prosecutors.

Here’s what else has happened today:

  • A New York judge threatened to jail Trump for violating a gag order.

  • House Republicans were spotted paging through a resolution to boot acting speaker Patrick McHenry from the job, reportedly as part of the effort to give him the full powers of his post.

  • Joe Biden is leaning on Congress to approve billions of dollars in aid to Israel and Ukraine. It cannot do so until the House elects a new speaker.

Updated

At his press conference following Jim Jordan’s third rejection as speaker, top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries said his lawmakers were willing to work with Republicans on a solution to the standoff.

“House Democrats continue to make clear that we are willing to find a bipartisan path forward so we can reopen the house and solve problems for hard-working American taxpayers,” Jeffries said.

“It’s time for traditional Republicans to get off the sidelines, get in the arena, realize that the chaos, dysfunction and extremism has to end, and the only way to do it is to figure out how we can partner in a bipartisan fashion to reopen the House and govern in a reasonable, common sense way.”

The subtext here is that any solution Democrats would support won’t involve Jordan, who the party loathes for his support of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, and pursuit of impeaching Joe Biden.

Former Trump lawyer Chesebro accepts plea deal in Georgia election subversion case

Kenneth Chesebro, a former lawyer for Donald Trump has accepted a plea deal to resolve felony charges against him in what could be significant development for the Georgia election subversion case.

Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Jewel Wicker:

Kenneth Chesebro, the attorney who allegedly devised the “fake electors” plan to prevent Joe Biden from winning the 2020 election, has accepted a plea deal and will avoid going to trial in the Fulton county racketeering case involving Donald Trump and 17 others.

Chesebro was facing seven felonies, including a conspiracy count and six additional charges related to a plan to create “alternate electors” to falsely certify that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election.

Attorneys for Chesebro and representatives for the Fulton county’s district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Jury selection for Chesebro’s case was still under way as CNN reported that prosecutors and defense had resumed meetings to discuss a potential plea agreement. Jury selection was slated to continue into next week.

Attorney Sidney Powell, who was also set to stand trial beginning today, accepted a plea deal earlier this week, potentially pressuring Chesebro into doing the same. ABC reported that he had rejected a plea offer from prosecutors to avoid jail time by pleading guilty to the conspiracy charge two days ago.

Updated

Some clarity, from Punchbowl News, on that resolution to remove Patrick McHenry as acting speaker that the Associated Press spotted:

A growing number of Republicans have called for giving McHenry the full powers of House speaker as a solution to the conference’s ongoing stalemate.

GOP conservatives want to hold another vote on Jim Jordan's candidacy for speakership – source

Members of the rightwing House Freedom Caucus want to hold a vote on whether to keep Jim Jordan as the GOP nominee for speaker following his third election loss earlier today, a Republican source tells the Guardian’s US politics live blog.

Jordan has bled support over the course of this week, and it’s unclear why the Freedom Caucus, which Jordan co-founded, would want a second internal Republican election on his nomination. In the just-concluded third round of balloting in the full House, 25 Republicans voted against making Jordan speaker, up from 20 during the first vote on Tuesday.

The vote on whether to keep Jordan as nominee would occur during a behind-closed-doors GOP conference meeting set to begin at 1pm. The Republican source said it was possible Jordan could receive 60 votes against his candidacy – a significant statement of opposition.

Updated

Could Republican infighting plunge the House into even worse chaos?

Perhaps. An Associated Press photographer snapped a GOP lawmaker reading through a resolution booting acting speaker Patrick McHenry from his post:

McHenry is a longtime North Carolina lawmaker who chairs the high-profile financial services committee, and found himself temporarily leading the House after Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the job, and wrote his name down first on a list of successors he is required by federal law to make.

Top House Democrat Jeffries convenes press conference after Jim Jordan loses third speakership election

The House’s Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, will soon hold a press conference, after the rightwing Republican Jim Jordan failed for the third time to win election as the chamber’s speaker.

Jeffries has managed to get the most votes of any candidate on all three ballots tallied this week, but Democrats don’t have a majority in the House, and he’s not seen as having a chance at becoming speaker. Rather, expect Jeffries to decry the chaos that’s engulfed the House GOP, and make the pitch that Democrats are the competent alternative.

Updated

What’s next for the House GOP?

As expected, the opposition to Jim Jordan grew on the just-concluded third election for speaker, with 25 Republicans voting for someone else and denying him the majority necessary to win the speaker’s gavel.

A Republican aide has confirmed to the Guardian’s US politics live blog that their lawmakers will now meet at 1pm eastern time to try to resolve the impasse.

Jim Jordan loses third election for speaker after 25 Republicans object

For the third time this week, Jim Jordan has failed to win the majority necessary to be elected as speaker of the House, after a growing number of his fellow Republicans refused to support his candidacy.

Twenty-five GOP lawmakers voted for someone other than Jordan. The rest, 194, voted for the combative rightwing lawmaker, while all 210 Democrats supported minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Jordan’s opponents have grown in number with each election. In the second vote held Wednesday, 22 Republicans voted against him, while on Tuesday, 20 opposed him.

The initial round of voting is over, and 25 Republicans have voted against Jim Jordan.

The clerk is now going back through the tally, and will again call on lawmakers who are supposed to be present in the chamber, but did not respond when first called.

Updated

It has.

The number of Republicans who have voted against Jim Jordan is now at 23, and may grow further.

We’re now at 22 Republicans voting for someone besides Jim Jordan.

That’s equal to his no votes in the second election on Wednesday. We’ll see if this number grows.

Back in the House, Jordan has lost 19 Republican votes so far.

All Democrats have voted for Hakeem Jeffries. The rest of the GOP has supported Jordan.

New York judge threatens to jail Trump for violating gag order

Meanwhile in New York City, the judge presiding over Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial just threatened to jail him, saying the former president violated a gag order.

Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani:

A New York judge threatened to imprison Donald Trump for “blatantly” violating a gag order on Friday after the former president failed to remove a social media post mocking the judge’s clerk.

As proceedings in the civil court began on Friday, the New York judge Arthur Engoron asked Trump’s lawyers why “this blatant violation of the gag order would not result in serious sanctions, including financial sanctions and/or possibly imprisoning him”.

Engoron issued a gag order against Trump on the second day of the trial after he attacked the judge’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield, in a social media post. Greenfield has been assisting Engoron throughout the trial, usually sitting next to the judge in the courtroom.

“Why is Judge Engoron’s Principal Law Clerk, Allison R Greenfield, palling around with Chuck Schumer?” Trump posted on social media, along with a picture of her with Schumer and linking to her personal Instagram page.

Engoron had ordered Trump to remove the post and to cease posting about court staff, though the post remained on his campaign website weeks later.

Trump’s lawyer Christopher Kise apologized to the judge for the violation saying that Trump’s “campaign machinery” forgot to take down the post.

“There was no intention to evade or circumvent or ignore the order,” Kise said, adding that the post had been taken down.

Jim Jordan on track to lose third election for speaker

Seven Republicans have voted against Jim Jordan, putting him on course to lose the third round of balloting for speaker of the House.

The thing to watch now is how many GOP lawmakers ultimately vote against him. Expectations are that his opposition in this election will exceed the 22 tallied on Wednesday.

Four Republicans currently oppose Jim Jordan.

The rest have voted for him. All Democrats so far polled have supported Hakeem Jeffries.

House begins third round of voting on making Jim Jordan speaker

The House is now voting on electing the Republican Jim Jordan speaker for the third time this week.

Lawmakers are being polled alphabetically by last name. Jordan is not expected to have the support necessary to win.

Updated

The Democratic whip, Katherine Clark, is up to nominate minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, and also to roast Jim Jordan.

“Leader Jeffries has answered our call, but the majority’s nominee is disconnected: disconnected from the American people and their values. Maga extremism is designed to divide and it has broken the Republican party. Their nominee’s vision is a direct attack on the freedom and the rights of the American people,” Clark said.

Clark also made a point of highlighting Jordan’s involvement in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, saying he “wanted to overturn the 2020 election, traffics disinformation, is a true threat to our democracy and our constitution”.

Updated

“Jim Jordan is an effective legislator,” Kevin McCarthy said in his nominating speech. “Legislating is about more than the name on the bill. It’s about reaching compromise and working long hours behind the scenes to get the job done.”

It was at this point that Democrats erupted into protest, prompting the acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, to bring down his gavel.

McCarthy, the former speaker, continued: “Jim is the right person to take that seat behind me to be our next speaker of the house.”

Updated

Per Punchbowl News, Jim Jordan will need 214 votes in his favor to win the speakership:

He is not expected to reach that level of support.

Kevin McCarthy delivers Jordan nomination speech

Jim Jordan’s nominating speech is being delivered by Kevin McCarthy.

Three weeks ago, he was speaker of the House. Then, eight rightwing Republicans collaborated with Democrats to vote him out, creating the mess that the House is currently in.

Updated

The quorum vote is over, and we’re heading to the third vote on making Jim Jordan speaker of the House.

A Republican will give a speech nominating Jordan, and a Democrat will give a speech nominating minority leader Hakeem Jeffries. Then lawmakers will vote alphabetically by last name.

The quorum call is ongoing, and the count currently stands at 427 lawmakers in attendance.

That’s 219 Republicans, and 208 Democrats. Six lawmakers have not yet voted: two Republicans, and four Democrats.

Needless to say, the spectacle of Jim Jordan’s repeated speakership election defeats has played right into Democrats’ hands.

The party is eager to present itself as the competent alternative to the GOP, which has a mere four-seat majority in the House. In a statement, the Democratic National Committee spokesperson, Sarafina Chitika, blasted Jordan’s morning press conference as “pointless”:

Jim Jordan’s ‘press conference’ today was a pathetic rerun of MAGA greatest hits – election denialism, desperation, and deflection. The only thing we learned is that Jim Jordan refuses to accept his failed speakership bid the same way he refuses to accept the 2020 election results – meanwhile, the GOP Chaos Conference continues to wreak havoc on the People’s House at the expense of urgently needed aid for Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine.

Updated

Punchbowl News reports that Jim Jordan’s Republican holdouts told him “he will never be speaker”:

Further evidence that this third vote will be an exercise in futility. At best, it will be a barometer for the size of Jordan’s opposition.

House gavels in for third attempt to elect Jim Jordan speaker

The House has just convened for the third attempt to elect the rightwing firebrand Jim Jordan as speaker, despite him having substantial opposition from Republican lawmakers that may grow in this latest round of voting.

The acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, just brought the gavel down, and the chamber’s business is under way. The first order of business is a quorum vote to determine how many lawmakers are in attendance.

Updated

We are about five minutes away from the House gaveling in for what is expected to be the third unsuccessful attempt this week to elect Jim Jordan speaker. If you are wondering how Congress’s lower chamber achieved this historic level of dysfunction, here’s a recap from the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino:

The leaderless House was plunged deeper into chaos on Thursday after Republicans refused to coalesce around a speaker and a plan to empower an interim speaker collapsed.

The party’s embattled candidate for speaker, congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, vowed to press ahead, scheduling a long-delayed third vote on his nomination for Friday morning.

But angry and exhausted, the House Republican conference ended the day of fiery closed-door sessions no closer to breaking the impasse that has immobilized the chamber for a 17th day.

Jordan, a Donald Trump loyalist who led the congressional effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and now chairs the House judiciary committee, has lost two consecutive votes to secure the speakership and did not appear to have the 217 votes he needs to win the gavel in a floor vote by Thursday evening.

Earlier in the day, Jordan had briefly reversed course and backed a novel, bipartisan proposal to expand the authority of the temporary speaker, a position currently held by Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, for the next several months as Jordan worked to shore up support for his bid. But a group of hard-right conservatives revolted, calling the plan “asinine” and arguing that it would effectively cede control of the floor to Democrats.

The number of Republicans who show up for today’s vote will also be a factor in determining whether Jordan wins or loses.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that the GOP congressman Derrick Van Orden will not be in attendance, as he’s on a trip to Israel:

We’ll get a better sense of attendance once the House gavels in and holds a quorum vote at 10am.

Updated

No one likes working on the weekend, but in his press conference, Jim Jordan signaled that could be what’s in store for House representatives as he presses on with his quest to become speaker.

Some lawmakers may respond by simply skipping town, and depending on which parties they belong to, that could change the number Jordan needs to win the speaker’s gavel. Here’s more on that, from Fox News:

The reviews of Jim Jordan’s first-thing-in-the-morning speech are in and they are … not positive.

The Congress obsessives at Punchbowl News report that his allies and enemies alike don’t think it did him any good:

And CNN reports that at the speakership vote expected to begin at 10am, Jordan could see even more support ebb:

Whenever the House returns to functionality, one of its first orders of business will be responding to a request by Joe Biden for emergency assistance for both top American ally Israel and Ukraine, which is fending off an invasion by US archnemesis Russia. Biden made the request in a rare Oval Office address last night, and here’s more on that from the Guardian’s David Smith:

Joe Biden has drawn a direct, provocative link between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s attack on Israel as he urged Americans not to walk away from their role as “a beacon to the world”.

In only the second Oval Office address of his presidency, Biden said he would ask Congress to provide aid for both Israel and Ukraine and denounced the scourge of antisemitism and Islamophobia at home.

The president’s 15-minute address sought to weave the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts together to convince war-weary voters and hardline Republicans of America’s obligations. It is a conflation that will make some uneasy, especially as Israel, with vastly superior military power, prepares for a ground invasion of Gaza.

“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: they both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy,” said Biden, sitting at the Resolute desk with flags, family photos, gold curtains and a darkened window behind him.

The duelling crises are providing a daunting diplomatic test for the former chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee who, at 80, is older than the state of Israel itself. That did not prevent him making a whirlwind trip to the country on Wednesday.

House expected to convene for third speaker election at 10am

The House is expected to convene to hold its third election for speaker at 10am eastern time, the Democratic whip, Katherine Clark, has told lawmakers.

The GOP nominee Jim Jordan on Wednesday failed for the second time to reach the threshold necessary for election, after 22 Republicans and all Democrats voted against him.

Updated

Reporters poked and prodded Jordan but he generally refused to say much besides reiterating that he will continue to run for speaker of the House – even if the votes drag into Saturday and Sunday.

“Our plan this weekend is to get his speaker elected to the House of Representatives as soon as possible so we can help the American people,” Jordan said.

He also made clear he still believes fraud was committed in the elections that unseated Donald Trump, even though no evidence has been discovered to support those claims.

“I think there were all kinds of problems with the 2020 election,” Jordan said at one point.

Updated

Jordan calls for House to 'get to work', as third speaker ballot looms

Speaking, as he usually does, in shirtsleeves, Jim Jordan made clear he was not abandoning his bid to become speaker of the House, despite significant opposition from his fellow Republicans.

“We need to get the appropriations process moving so that the key elements of our government are funded and funded in the right way, particularly our military. We need to get back to our committee work. And frankly, we need to continue the oversight work that I think is so darn important,” said Jordan, who leads the judiciary committee, which is one of three conducting the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.

“We need to get to work for the American people. We need to do what we said we were going to do. We need to do what we told them we were going to do when they elected us and put us in office and, frankly, we can’t do that if the House isn’t open. We can’t open the house until we get [a] speaker.”

Now he’s taking questions.

Jordan expected to make case for speaker at press conference

Jim Jordan is set to anytime from now hold a press conference after his fellow Republicans twice refused to elect him speaker of the House.

Jordan is a conservative stalwart in Congress’s lower chamber, and a supporter of Donald Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Despite winning an internal party election to become the GOP nominee for speaker, he’s failed to win the near unanimity from the party necessary to win the speaker’s gavel. Democrats have unanimously opposed him, decrying him as an “insurrectionist”.

The press conference is starting now.

Updated

Jim Jordan’s press conference this morning comes after a day of intense talks with his fellow Republicans on Thursday.

At one point during the discussions Jordan briefly reversed course and backed a novel, bipartisan proposal to expand the authority of the temporary speaker for the next several months, my colleague Lauren Gambino reported.

Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, is currently in that role, but, Lauren reported: “A group of hard-right conservatives revolted, calling the plan ‘asinine’ and arguing that it would effectively cede control of the floor to Democrats.”

Here’s one take on the continuing goings-on:

Good morning,

Jim Jordan is set to hold a press conference on Friday morning, amid ongoing chaos as Republicans attempt to select a House speaker.

The hard-right Donald Trump ally is expected to launch a third bid for the role, after failing in two ballots on the House floor so far.

As the House entered its third week of stasis – left speakerless by Republican infighting – pressure is growing on the GOP to nominate a speaker. A government funding deadline is nearing, while the Biden administration is set to ask for funding to support Israel’s efforts in Gaza.

Jordan is due to speak at 8am ET on Friday, and could schedule a third vote in the House. If that happens, reports suggest it would go even worse for the Ohio representative, who lost support between the first and second ballots.

In other developments, the Biden administration is expected to ask Congress for $14bn in aid for Israel on Friday, as part of a supplemental funding package which would also include $14bn for US-Mexico border management and $10bn for humanitarian efforts.

Meanwhile, in Georgia jury selection is set to begin for the first defendant to go to trial in the case that accuses Republican former president Donald Trump and others of illegally scheming to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

Kenneth Chesebro, a former Trump campaign attorney, was indicted just over two months ago along with Trump and 17 others.

If Chesebro doesn’t take a plea deal before the trial starts – as Sidney Powell did on Thursday – the proceedings will provide a first extensive look at the evidence the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, and her team have amassed.

Updated

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