House Republicans drop Jim Jordan as their nominee for speaker, stumbling back to square one

Republicans dropped Rep. Jim Jordan on Friday as their nominee for House speaker, making the decision during a closed-door session after the hard-edged ally of Donald Trump failed badly on a third ballot for the gavel.

Afterward, Jordan said simply of his colleagues, “We put the question to them, they made a different decision.”

The hard-charging Judiciary Committee chairman said House Republicans now need to come together and “figure out who our speaker is going to be.”

The House impasse deepening into a full-blown crisis, Republicans have no realistic or workable plan to unite the fractured GOP majority, elect a new speaker and return to the work of Congress that has been languishing since hard-liners ousted Kevin McCarthy at the start of the month.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise said they’re going “come back and start over” on