A divided House Republican Conference returned to the Capitol on Monday night amid urgency to fill its leadership vacuum and quickly secure aid to Israel after the deadliest terrorist attack on the U.S. ally in decades.
Lawmakers coming and going from their closed-door meeting appeared mostly unified on the need to elect a new speaker as soon as Wednesday. But with no clear front-runner between the two chief candidates — Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio — it wasn’t obvious the conference would be able to unite behind one of them this week.
“The world is watching. They’re seeing a dysfunctional democracy … We need to get a speaker by Wednesday,” Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. “I think, by and large, people will accept the will of the conference. But getting to 217 [votes] — that’s going to be the issue.”
