House GOP plan to empower acting speaker McHenry fails

House Republicans were no closer to choosing a replacement speaker for the deposed Kevin McCarthy Thursday night, as a plan to give more power to Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-NC) ran into resistance from hardline members and at least one conference leader.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Republicans’ speaker designate, floated the proposal during a closed-door meeting at the Capitol — only to face backlash from supporters of his own speakership bid, including GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY).

“The people across #NY21 and America can rest assured that I strongly oppose any attempt to create a Democrat backed coalition government,” she posted on X after the meeting.

“I will vote to support Jim Jordan for Speaker on the House Floor,” Stefanik said as members remained uncertain Thursday evening of when or whether a third ballot would take place.

GOP lawmakers emerged from the meeting certain that the prospect of a “Speaker” McHenry was no prospect at all.

“I think it’s dead. … I don’t think it’s going to the floor,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), whose estimation was echoed by fellow Floridians Kat Cammack and Vern Buchanan.

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a firm Jordan ally, went further and called the McHenry option “the biggest FU to Republican voters I’ve ever seen.”

“We’re handing our majority back over to the Democrats by going along with a power-sharing agreement. It’s absurd,” he told reporters.

But some pro-Jordan members were equivocal about the idea.

“I’m certainly on the side of empowering McHenry because the speaker is there to process bills coming to the floor,” argued Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas).

“The real work up here happens in committees; the real work is happening on my task force with the cartels,” he explained. “Arguing with each other about who’s the most popular, that’s not real work. The real work is done on our committees. It’s passing legislation.”

After 16 days of stalemate following McCarthy’s ouster Oct. 3, the bad blood between the eight Republicans who voted with 208 Democrats to remove him and the rest of the conference bubbled to the surface Thursday, as the House faces pressure to respond to Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists.

“We are in completely uncharted territory as a country in the middle of a Middle East war,” said Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), the first Green Beret ever elected to Congress.

“Where I come from, as a veteran, if you got to blow a bridge, you better have another one to cross. Those eight clearly didn’t have another one to cross.”

House Republicans erupted when Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) stepped up to address his colleagues, with one source telling The Post that nearly the “whole room booed” and “yelled at him to sit down.”

The source also said Rep. Michael Bost (R-Ill.) unloaded with angry shouts at Gaetz, who led the motion to vacate McCarthy’s speakership.

Gaetz later described the incident as being “like a Thanksgiving dinner” with Bost playing the “drunk uncle,” according to the Washington Examiner.

“I was at the mic, I was speaking and Matt Gaetz tried to interrupt, so I told him to sit down and he sat down,” McCarthy recounted to reporters.

“I think the entire conference screamed at him,” he added. “The whole country, I think, would scream at Matt Gaetz right now. Remember, it was crazy eights led by Matt Gaetz and every single Democrat that put us into this situation.”

Others vented about pressure on the 22 GOP holdouts who oppose Jordan coming under an intense pressure campaign from the Ohioan’s purported supporters.

Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) said they or their family members had received death threats following their second-ballot vote, while Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said his wife had slept with a “loaded gun” by her side after getting threatening anonymous texts.

But Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) emerged from the ruckus and told The Post he expected a third speaker ballot at some point Thursday evening, with McCarthy apparently poised to deliver a nominating speech at Jordan’s request from the floor.

Meanwhile, Jordan met with the holdouts in the afternoon to try once again to win them over.

“We made the pitch to members on the [McHenry] resolution as a way to lower the temperature and get back to work,” Jordan told reporters after exiting the conference session.

“We decided that wasn’t where we’re going to go,” he said. “I’m still running for speaker, and I plan to go to the floor and get the votes.”

One of those holdouts, Hudson Valley Rep. Mike Lawler, said after meeting with Jordan that the House should either empower McHenry or restore McCarthy.

“The best thing that could happen now – for our conference, the House of Representatives, and the country – is for cooler heads to prevail, past grievances to be dropped, and for Republicans to concede that ousting Kevin was a mistake and set things right,” he said in a statement. “We must prove to the American people that we can govern effectively and responsibly, or in 15 months we’ll be debating who the Minority Leader is and preparing for Joe Biden’s second inaugural.”

The Ohio Republican had been expecting to “try to shore up votes until January” with McHenry overseeing the House, a source familiar with Jordan’s plans told The Post, but that changed after it became clear the speaker pro tem idea was a no-go.

The same source confirmed that Jordan was “not dropping out.”

At the same time, members who voted against the House Judiciary Committee chairman emphasized his chances of getting the gavel on a third ballot were slim.

“Let’s do a third vote. It’s gonna go backwards. It’s time to stop,” said Bacon, who advocated for the McHenry option to his caucus. “In the end, you got to work with Senate Democrats, the president. We have to find consensus.”

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who opposed the McHenry proposal, suggested that consensus might only be reached by rallying around their party’s presidential frontrunner.

“There’s no one in this room that could get to 217 [votes]. No one. We threw our speaker out that had 96% of support in the conference,” Nehls said after leaving the tense GOP session.

“We threw out the second most popular Republican in the country. The second most popular — who’s the first? You all know who it is: Donald J. Trump,” he argued.

“I think Donald Trump can do things that are impossible and turn them into reality,” Nehls continued. “We seen it as four years in the presidency. You look at the demonstrations outside this building yesterday. If Donald J. Trump was the president, Hamas would not be in Israel. We wouldn’t be spending billions in Ukraine without a strategy. The administration hasn’t given us a strategy. You put Donald Trump in here, he can fix his plans. I recommend we give him 100 days.”

Gaetz told reporters earlier this month that conversations with the 77-year-old former president had reassured him that the move to oust McCarthy had been “the right thing.”

Trump has denied any involvement in the anti-McCarthy plot.