Republican Jim Jordan wins party election to become House minority leader of next Congress
Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican hardliner from Ohio, has won the election to become the next House minority leader in Congress.
Jordan beat Representative Steve Scalise, the current majority leader, by 106-73 in a closed-door vote to lead Republicans from January. He replaces the current House speaker, Mike Jonson, who said he would not run when the GOP cedes control to Democrats in the new year.
Key events
If House lawmakers end up sending the Hegseth impeachment resolution to the floor for a full debate, Thomas Massie said he plans to launch a procedural measure to launch a vote on each indivdual article of impeachment, instead of allowing one all-or-nothing vote on the entire resolution as a package.
We’re watching the key procedural vote now, and will bring you the latest.
Here’s a recap of the day so far
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Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican hardliner from Ohio, has won the election to become the next House minority leader in Congress. Jordan beat Representative Steve Scalise, the current majority leader, by 106-73 in a closed-door vote to lead Republicans from January. He replaces the current House speaker, Mike Jonson, who said he would not run when the GOP cedes control to Democrats in the new year.
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Jordan, 62, who currently serves as chair of the House judiciary committee, is known as a pugnacious representative and fierce ally of Donald Trump. Jordan was also the first chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus in the lower chamber. He repeatedly pushed the conspiracy that the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden, was stolen. Jordan was also subpoenaed in 2021 by the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, which identified Jordan as a “significant player” in the president’s attempts to overturn the election.
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Meanwhile, Republicans in the upper chamber, re-elected John Thune to serve as Senate minority leader in the next Congress. The GOP senator from North Dakota didn’t face a challenger in the closed-door vote, as Democrats prepare for at least a 10-seat majority in the new year. “I appreciated the opportunity to have an open, honest, and transparent conversation with my colleagues today, and I am honored to have their continued trust and support,” Thune said in a statement, after Senate Republicans met on Capitol Hill today to strategize after their drubbing in the recent midterm elections.
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Earlier, the embattled defense secretary Pete Hegseth held a press conference at the Pentagon where he blasted Thomas Massie’s articles of impeachment against him. Ahead of House lawmakers holding a key vote on the measure, Hegseth called the effort to oust him from office “a political spectacle” led by “one disgruntled and defeated congressman”. A reminder that Massie, a Republican congressman, lost his primary earlier this year, but has frequently broken with his party and Trump over the years. It has been 150 years since the last US defense secretary was impeached. That was William Belknap in 1876, who served under President Ulysses S Grant. Belknap was eventually acquitted by the Senate.
Chuck Schumer remains confident he has enough votes for majority leader, while Bernie Sanders says he won’t back him
Top Democrat Chuck Schumer said he is “confident” that he has enough votes to become Senate majority leader in the next Congress.
This comes after members of his caucus have said they are not prepared to back him as Democrats prepare to take control of the upper chamber in the new year.
On Tuesday, Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who votes with Democrats, said that he would not support Schumer as speaker. “The time is now for change,” Sanders told reporters. “We need a vigorous debate about the direction of the Democratic party.”
Senator Elissa Slotkin, the first-term Democrat from Michigan who won her 2024 election despite Donald Trump carrying her state, said that she will need to see “a concrete plan that’s definitively different” in order to secure her vote. “I’m a no until and unless I see that from anyone, and frankly I suggest that my peers withhold quorum if there’s only going to be one candidate, withhold quorum until you get that plan,” Slotkin said.
The Michigan Democrat noted that she had a “very productive” conversation yesterday with Senator Chris Van Hollen, the progressive Democrat from Maryland, who said he is in “listening mode” about the calls for him to challenge Schumer for the majority leader position.
Slotkin added today that the intra-party battle is not between progressive and moderate, but rather “team fight versus team flight”.
She added: “Do you actually want to fight hard for the things that are going to help people, or do you kind of want to just sit there and look like you’re doing something?”
Republican John Thune wins re-election as Senate minority leader
Republican John Thune has won re-election to serve as Senate minority leader in the next Congress.
The GOP senator from South Dakota didn’t face a challenger in the closed-door vote, as Democrats prepare for at least a 10-seat majority in the new year.
“I appreciated the opportunity to have an open, honest, and transparent conversation with my colleagues today, and I am honored to have their continued trust and support,” Thune said in a statement, after upper chamber Republicans met on Capitol Hill today to strategize after their drubbing in the recent midterm elections. “We remain united in our commitment to advancing conservative priorities, working with President Trump and our colleagues in the House, and holding the line against Democrats’ efforts to enact their far-left, liberal agenda.”
Incoming GOP minority leader was accused of engaging in a cover-up of widespread sexual abuse at Ohio State University
Sam Levine, Joan E Greve and Lauren Gambino
Between 1987 and 1995, Jim Jordan served as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University. During that time, he worked alongside Richard Strauss, a team doctor who was accused of sexual abuse. A 2019 independent report commissioned by OSU concluded that Strauss “sexually abused at least 177 male student-patients he was charged with treating as a university physician”.
Jordan has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Strauss’s actions, but former wrestlers have attested that Jordan was directly informed of the doctor’s misconduct. Earlier this month, four former OSU wrestlers publicly denounced Jordan, saying his inaction rendered him unqualified to become speaker of the House.
“Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” the former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck told NBC News. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”
Here’s our 2023 profile on Jordan when he launched his failed bit for House speaker:
Jordan has been in office for nearly 20 years, and after the Republican shellacking in the recent midterms, his new role will be crucial for the party to advance their legislative aims and fend off aggressive oversight that Democrats have promised in the next Congress.
As minority leader, Jordan will be the GOP’s main spokesperson and negotiator in the lower chamber, but will be hampered by the 80+ seat majority that Democrats will enjoy. For context, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries (poised to become the next House speaker once his party takes control in the new year) is the current minority leader.
Jordan will also be responsible for managing Donald Trump’s expectations while his party is in the minority. Mike Johnson, who currently leads Republicans in the House, has developed a strong relationship with the president as a loyal foot-soldier who is was willing, and often able, to carry out his agenda.
Jordan, 62, who currently serves as chair of the House judiciary committee, is known as a pugnacious representative and fierce ally of Donald Trump. Jordan was also the first chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus in the lower chamber.
Jordan repeatedly pushed the conspiracy that the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden, was stolen. Jordan was also subpoenaed in 2021 by the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, which identified Jordan as a “significant player” in the president’s attempts to overturn the election.
Jordan, however, refused to comply with that subpoena, calling it “an unprecedented and inappropriate demand to examine the basis for a colleague’s decision on a particular matter pending before the House of Representatives”. The committee referred the congressman to the ethics committee for investigation, which found him to be in violation of House conduct – but ultimately did not take disciplinary action against him.
Republican Jim Jordan wins party election to become House minority leader of next Congress
Congressman Jim Jordan, a Republican hardliner from Ohio, has won the election to become the next House minority leader in Congress.
Jordan beat Representative Steve Scalise, the current majority leader, by 106-73 in a closed-door vote to lead Republicans from January. He replaces the current House speaker, Mike Jonson, who said he would not run when the GOP cedes control to Democrats in the new year.
US Senate race in Mississippi on knife’s edge as Democrats eye latest midterm pickup
With 97% of the votes counted, Democrat Scott Colom is leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,575 votes in the nail-biting US Senate race in Mississippi.
Democrats are eyeing the Magnolia state as their eighth pickup in a midterms cycle where Republicans were blown out of Congress.
The state counts any ballots received by 10 November, as long as they were postmarked by election day – so we hopefully expect a call soon.
On Capitol Hill today, Hyde-Smith told reporters that she’s feeling “very optimistic” despite the lag.
“They’re still counting. We’ve got a few thousand out, so we’re feeling very optimistic,” she said, but refused to answer why the contest is so close. A reminder that Mississippi hasn’t elected a Democratic US senator since 1982. If Colom wins he’d also be the first Black man elected to that position since the Reconstruction era, 145 years ago.
Ariana Baio
A new statue mocking Donald Trump was installed on Washington’s National Mall on Monday, this time poking fun at bone spurs that the US president was diagnosed with, which allowed him to defer the Vietnam war draft.
Just two days before Veterans Day, the gilded statue – titled The Foot Soldier – appeared near the National Gallery of Art’s Sculpture Garden. Created by the Secret Handshake, a group of anonymous artists, the statue depicts Trump sitting down while rubbing his bare foot.
“We honor the service and sacrifice of our commander in chief, Donald J Trump. He’s a soldier in spirit who marched to the front lines of dodging the draft, armed with a perfect diagnosis of bone spurs,” a plaque on the statue reads.
The art piece refers to allegations that Trump dodged the Vietnam war draft in 1968 by receiving a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels after he graduated from college.
“We salute a leader who knows you can’t spell sacrifice without ‘I,’ and a warrior who reminds us that sometimes when you’re called to stand up, it’s best to just sit down and rest your feet,” the plaque read.
“Toey”, a 6ft-tall mascot of a toe suffering from bone spurs, stood next to the art installation serving as an interactive element, the Secret Handshake said in a statement.
“Draft dodger? I hardly know her,” a person dressed as Toey told the Washington Post. “I’m the biggest toe. The hugest toe. Huge. Hugest toe. Largest toe that anyone’s ever seen.”
Democrats, who plan to continue the Epstein investigation in the next Congress, slammed the GOP-led inquiry.
Ranking member Robert Garcia said in a statement:
Oversight Republicans have released a report based on an incomplete investigation and zero public hearings on Jeffrey Epstein. The Department of Justice continues to illegally withhold over 2.5 million pages of documents, there’s been no investigation of Ghislaine Maxwell’s transfer, and Attorney General Todd Blanche has yet to testify about his role in the largest government cover-up of the modern era.
We will not allow the President and his allies to dismiss this investigation. We intend to hold real public hearings uplifting survivors and asking tough questions of the powerful men who associated with Epstein, including Donald Trump. Our work is just getting started.
House oversight Republicans say government ‘failed’ survivors in final report on Epstein investigation
Earlier today, Republicans on the House oversight committee released a sharply critical 136-page report summarizing the findings of its 15-month-long investigation into the federal government’s handling of investigations into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Rebuking the government’s handling of the criminal case against Epstein and its release of the files related to it, the committee recommended that the Department of Justice renew its investigation of the disgraced financier’s associates.
“The federal government has failed the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s horrific crimes for decades,” oversight chair James Comer said in a statement.
The committee found that the crimes committed by Epstein after 2005 “could have been prevented and justice served had it not been for the failures of investigators and federal prosecutors in South Florida and Washington DC.”
It also found that Donald Trump was not implicated in Epstein’s crimes and accused Democrats of being “obsessed” with trying to implicate the president.
The committee also accused the US and foreign governments, and major financial institutions, of failing to respond to “clear indicators of human trafficking and immigration fraud.” Despite identifying suspicious transactions that “bore hallmarks of human trafficking and illicit financial activity”, institutions allowed Epstein to “use fraudulent decoy flights and refundable or dummy itineraries to transport foreign women across borders directly to his residences,” the report says.
The report calls on the justice department to interview or reinterview “key witnesses” who were part of Epstein and Maxwell’s inner circle, to investigate further allegations, and to establish a proper process for survivors to access their un-redacted records.
It also urges Congress to pass legislation sponsored by Comer that would allow witnesses and survivors of sexual abuse to speak freely about it, by non-disclosure or confidentiality agreements.
As we reported earlier, Pete Hegseth has dismissed moves to impeach him over alleged abuse of power in the Iran war as “a farce” that would fail. The US defence secretary made the comments during a press conference this morning, a day after Thomas Massie, Kentucky’s Republican representative, introduced eight articles of impeachment against him. Here’s the clip:
As we bring you the latest on the effort to impeach defense secretary Pete Hegseth, my colleague Anna Betts, has put together a primer about what to know about the push to oust Hegseth, and what happens next as we prepare for today’s key vote.
Vance calls impeachment effort ‘ridiculous show’ as House prepares for key vote in effort to oust Hegseth
Vice-president JD Vance has also joined the chorus of top Republicans blasting the impeachment effort against the defense secretary.
“Has Pete Hegseth committed impeachable crimes? The question is absurd and the answer is: obviously not,” Vance said on social media. “Like so much of Congress, impeachment has become a ridiculous show that stands in for actual policymaking.”
He echoed Hegseth’s argument at the Pentagon earlier today, and said that impeachment was not the correct avenue for pushing back against policy disagreements.
“Legislation is hard. Impeachments are easy (and ultimately, inconsequential). The irony is that legislators are most angry at Pete on the issues where he’s most correct: repositioning forces away from Europe/Ukraine and reorganizing the general officer corps,” Vance added. “This isn’t about Iran, this is about the fact that Pete took on the bureaucracy at the Pentagon.”
