Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) opposed Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for Speaker to teach him a lesson and hold him accountable for his character flaws, he told the Mark Kaye Show after voting against Jordan on the House floor for the third time.
Rutherford, whose attacks against Jordan have grown increasingly personal, has offered a series of evolving reasons for opposing the popular conservative that contradict one another or do not hold up under scrutiny.
In his interview with Kaye, Rutherford claims to have voted for Rep. Steve Scalise (R-FL) on the House floor “because Steve Scalise beat Jim Jordan in a conference vote in a free and fair election. And Jim Jordan refused to accept the outcome of that election … During his so-called concession speech, Jim Jordan got up and just blew any chance of Steve Scalise being able to get the 217 on the floor.”
When the host asserted that Scalise never would have had the necessary votes to win on the floor, Rutherford confusingly replied, “that’s the point,” before pivoting to discuss the eight Republicans who voted to oust Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the speakership.
“The point is [Scalise] won the majority vote. The minority should have gone with him, and Jim Jordan, he should have led that minority. He got beat by Steve Scalise. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But now, after you know what we saw the eight do, there’s this idea that somehow the minority is gonna get to dictate to the majority. That’s not the way this country works. And in fact, Mark, every one of these members up here, you know how they got here. They won a majority.”
The host pointed out that Jordan too won his nomination with a majority (in fact by a greater margin than Scalise), and that by Rutherford’s own standard, he should have voted for Jordan.
Caught in a contradiction, Rutherford gave another reason, claiming, “No, this is about accountability now. Jim Jordan lost the election. I’m not now going to reward him by making him Speaker. Now, this is about accountability.”
The host countered, “So you’re not going to go with the majority, even though the rule is to go with the majority?”
Rutherford replied, “I went with the majority. Jim Jordan is the one that refused to go with the majority. And I cannot abide by that. So I’m not going to tolerate and I’m not gonna reward bad behavior.”
Rutherford’s claims that Jordan did not go with the majority are untrue. Jordan publicly endorsed Scalise and pledged to vote for him on the floor.
Further, his characterization of Jordan’s concession speech contrasts with reports that Jordan magnanimously offered to give Scalise’s nomination speech on the House floor.
Jordan’s nominating speech never took place due to Scalise withdrawing from the race after failing to see a path to victory on the House floor.
According to reports, it was Scalise who failed the “Rutherford test,” refusing to get behind the majority of the conference’s decision.
These reports reveal that Scalise has been accused of working behind the scenes to undermine Jordan’s path to the Speakership, even refusing to give a nominating speech for Jordan despite Jordan agreeing to do so for Scalise.
Additionally, Rutherford’s statement that Scalise initially won the majority is misleading.
While Scalise won on the first ballot with 113 votes to Jordan’s 99 out of 224 votes, three of his votes came from delegates from U.S. territories who cannot vote on the House floor.
When accounting solely for members permitted to vote on the House floor, Scalise did not receive a majority.
After Scalise stepped down, Jordan won a second ballot outright with 124 votes, eleven more than Scalise claimed in the first round.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) at the Capitol in Washington, DC, April 27, 2023. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Asked how he responds to constituents who support Jordan and were upset with his votes, Rutherford touted his skill in educating his constituents. “I hear from people that want me to support Jim Jordan until, which is why I’m — Mark, I really appreciate you all having me on your show. Because it gives me a chance to talk to those, those constituents because I can tell you, the ones that I text back my reasoning for my vote in how I got to where I’m at, now what they tell me, ‘thanks for your principled leadership, hold strong, keep the faith,’ you know, those kind of things.”
“Mark, I can’t tell you how many people have contacted me and said, ‘John, I know there’s gotta be a reason, but Good lord, can you explain it to me because I like Jim Jordan,’ and by the time I explain it to them, they’re like, ‘You know what, that makes perfect sense. I’m with you.'”
“And it’s the same explanation you just gave us where he didn’t go with the majority in conference and now you’re teaching him a lesson?” asked Kaye, referencing the standard Rutherford held for Jordan but not for himself or Scalise.
Rutherford agreed and went further, claiming his votes against Jordan are also a lesson for other members of the conference, while not offering an explanation. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m holding him accountable. And this is not just for Jim Jordan, Mark. Discipline and accountability is not just about the individual being held accountable. Also for all the other members of this conference.”
Kaye listed Jordan’s priorities if he became Speaker — securing the border, investigating Joe Biden, reducing spending, and reducing payments to Ukraine — and asked Rutherford if he supported those priorities in a Speaker.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks with Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) during a meeting of the 118th Congress in the House Chamber at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Rutherford dodged the question and even disagreed with the host that the staunch conservative Jordan prioritized those issues, again referencing “character issues.” “Well, you say that, but I’m a little confused on why Jim Jordan failed to vote on the stopgap funding bill then that had securing the border, a thirty percent cut, and a commission to look at the $33 trillion debt. This is not ideological. This is a leadership issue. Honestly, Mark, this is a character issue. And I saw a character flaw that night that I cannot reward.”
The House would not have been in the difficult position to pass a last-minute stopgap funding bill if the House Appropriations Committee, on which Rutherford serves, had done its job and passed on time each of the twelve bills that fund the government. The shutdown threat eliminated leverage conservatives had to reduce government spending, a prospect that big-spending appropriators have opposed.
The committee by law must submit each of the twelve appropriations bills to Congress by June 10 but failed to do so with all twelve bills, forcing the House to scramble at the end of the fiscal year to keep the government open.
This strategy has been employed for many years in Congress. Appropriators and leadership intentionally slow-walk spending bills in until the last minute, forcing members of Congress to vote up or down on one massive bill to keep the government open, denying the American people’s elected representatives the opportunity to closely examine how taxpayer dollars are spent.
Watch: McCaul: GOP Speaker Search “Embarrassing” and “Dangerous”
Appropriators stuff those massive multi-trillion-dollar spending bills with goodies for special interests whose campaign donations keep these members in Congress.
Rutherford demanded again in the interview that Jordan step down, saying, “he needs to get out of the way and let us do the people’s business.”
Later that day, by secret ballot, the conference removed Jordan from his position as its Speaker Designee.
Yet Rutherford’s eagerness to “do the people’s business” seems to have disappeared seconds later in the interview when he argued it somehow would be necessary for Republicans to take the weekend off to figure out its next Speaker nominee, stating the conference’s ongoing deliberations were less about resolving the Speaker issue than about punishing Jordan.
“That’s who we got to find this weekend,” he said. “I’m not going to throw any names out because this, what’s going on right now, has nothing to do with who’s going to be Speaker. It has to do with moving Jim, holding him accountable. And then we’ll figure out who the next Speaker should be.”
The host pointed out that former President Donald Trump endorsed Jordan for Speaker, asking, “if you’re supporting Donald Trump and you endorsed Donald Trump, and he endorses Jim Jordan, why are you guys still so far apart?”
Rutherford again referenced nebulous character issues, replying, “because I am voting my conscience on what I saw in the conference. Donald Trump wasn’t in that room. He doesn’t know the leadership failures that I saw, and I’ve experienced with Jim, and why I can’t support him. But I’ll bet this, I bet Donald Trump knows I’ve got a reason.”
“I bet he does,” Kaye laughed. “I bet he bet he does.”
Follow Bradley Jaye on Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
