House GOP lawmakers are less than thrilled that Kevin McCarthy has ripped apart their messaging strategy in the days leading up to the election — and they see him as a potential liability for Jim Jordan’s likely minority leader bid.
The former speaker, out of Congress for nearly three years, still recently found time while on a Singapore trip days before Election Day to go on Bloomberg TV and undercut the conference’s messaging. In the hit, McCarthy said “It’s not that the Democrats are going to win this election. Republicans are going to lose it,” faulted the thin legislative calendar, and admitted he couldn’t name three things Republicans would deliver if they held the chamber.
Members and staffers noted he went out of his way to trash their campaign strategy from overseas, which they found a little over the top.
“Kevin is rooting for us to fail every day. And it shows. I mean, people hate that. They’re not just ambivalent,” one lawmaker told Source Say News. “Is Newt Gingrich out there as a former speaker, saying anything other than, this is how the Republicans can win?” (Newt, for his part, has largely stuck to the ‘here’s how we win’ lane.)
It also wasn’t the first time. In a May interview with the Daily Wire’s Ben Domenech, McCarthy unloaded on leadership for discharge petitions and taking too much advice from the Freedom Caucus, and earlier this year he called it a “real misstep” when Republicans stalled Trump’s bill in committee.
Members of the conference also noted that he had little success in following his own advice while he held the gavel and felt his Monday morning quarterbacking could use some self-awareness.
Now he’s also advising House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the same guy who spent years as one of his biggest internal critics, as Jordan eyes a run for minority leader if Republicans lose the House, The Washington Sun reported.
Sources started calling and texting pretty quickly with takes after that report dropped. Former Jordan staff have landed at Watchtower and Miller Strategies, both of which have McCarthy ties — some members have noticed the Venn diagram. And a few Republicans — both on and off the Hill — who spoke with Source Say News think the alliance could end up hurting Jordan more than it helps.
“If I was Jim Jordan and I wanted to lead the Republican conference I wouldn’t pick up the Kevin McCarthy playbook,” former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who led the effort to oust McCarthy in 2023, told Source Say News Thursday morning.
Gaetz got into the history on his show later that day. He recalled Jordan coming to him after McCarthy’s ouster, before a new speaker was in place, and floating that he could serve as McCarthy’s “assistant speaker” if Gaetz dropped his objection.
“I somewhat mockingly referred to that as the assistant to the regional manager plan, kind of the Dwight Schrute of the House of Representatives,” Gaetz said on his show. “Obviously Jim Jordan is too good for that.”
Some within the conference feel like McCarthy’s rivalry with Scalise could be a motivator, but also felt he was looking for relevancy and an easier path to lobby people at the top.
“I feel like it’s interesting the USS McCarthy is looking to float again. It’s like so typical,” another GOP lawmaker told Source Say News. “There is speculation that he just announced that [his alliance with Jordan] himself, but that’s probably along with being considered for energy secretary and White House chief of staff.”
A former senior GOP aide was even harsher. “Kevin is driven by opportunism. Since being ousted in 2023, he’s never really moved on and has tried to undermine House Republicans at every turn, all in an effort to regain influence within Congress,” the aide said. “I think he sees this race as his last opportunity to position himself as the power behind a Jordan-led leadership operation.”
“Show me another former party leader who consistently undermines their own party? You can’t. McCarthy cosplays as a team player when really, he’s always only out for himself,” a different senior Republican told Source Say News. “He thinks he’s Keyser Söze when in reality he’s Lord Farquaad.”
McCarthy’s camp argued he isn’t trying to screw over current leadership and is just friendly with former colleagues. “Speaker McCarthy talks regularly with many of his former colleagues and friends on the Hill to help the Conference and protect the majority they worked so hard to earn,” a McCarthy spokesperson told Source Say News.
Jordan is widely expected to run if Republicans lose the majority, and it would likely pit him against Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.). Minority leader takes a simple majority on a secret ballot — a much lower bar than the 218 votes Jordan couldn’t reach three times in 2023.
Trying to get a real whip count on all three potential options has been messy. It looks like a pure numbers game depending on which races Republicans hold and which ones they lose. Some sources said not to rule out a dark horse if things get chaotic on Tuesday.
Some members say he’s a different guy than the Tea Party bomb-thrower of 2010. “For people like me, who have not seen the Jim Jordan of 2010, the Tea Party Jim Jordan... it’s a very, very different Jordan,” one lawmaker told Source Say News, comparing his image makeover to former Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). “Folks who have been here even four years don’t really have much of the backstory [on Jordan as Freedom Caucus chair],” a second lawmaker said. His constant TV presence doesn’t hurt his name recognition, either.
“There are enough members, I think, still left who kind of remember the Jim Jordan of old, and so they’re probably going to be more in the Scalise camp. But Jim’s been very active all around the country and I think he’s probably calling a lot of members,” another lawmaker told Source Say News.
Not everyone thinks he has shifted gears, and some aren’t sold that he is the favorite in the race.
“I think that Steve probably has an advantage over Jim Jordan, assuming that Johnson doesn’t run,” another lawmaker told Source Say News. “In all the speakers elections, Steve always got more votes than Jim.” As for Johnson, the lawmaker said if Republicans lose the majority, “he would be so stupid to run because he wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance of winning.”
Others are firmly in Johnson’s corner.
“There is so much respect for Johnson in the conference, and a recognition that he is the only one who can unify the conference the way it needs to be unified in order to win the majority,” another lawmaker told Source Say News.
And depending on how big the losses are, one member said they could see the conference turning to Jordan. “I’m not saying that I’m advocating for this or that people have said this, but I can see where the conference could take the approach,” the lawmaker said.
Either way, if McCarthy’s in Jordan’s corner, some Republicans would rather he stay off TV until after Tuesday. The NRCC race, steering races, and potentially other leadership races already look lit, and sources are buzzing about all of it.
