President Donald Trump refused to weigh in on the House GOP leadership race to replace Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) in the top Republican spot next Congress.
“We’ll stay out of it,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “The speaker was fantastic. The people under him were fantastic. All good people.”
Trump also denied that he asked Johnson to step aside from his leadership post. Both Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) are vying for the minority leader post in the 120th Congress.
In a letter to the GOP conference announcing his bid, Scalise acknowledged Republican losses in the midterm elections were “far worse than any of us expected,” but urged unity in the aftermath.
“The House Republican Conference must be the first line of defense in this crucial battle, and we must fight like our way of life depends on it—because it does,” Scalise wrote. “That is why I’m running to be your Republican Leader—I am ready to lead on day one and chart our path back to the majority.”
Jordan, meanwhile, told the GOP conference in his own letter that he is “battle-tested on the oversight front” and argued that he “knows the Democrats’ playbook.”
“I know what it will take to lead our Conference in the minority, to stay unified, and to coordinate and calibrate our response to the Democrats’ tactics,” Jordan wrote. “We need a Leadership team that is active and engaged, forward-thinking and straight-shooting.”
Scalise’s and Jordan’s jockeying for the position comes two years after both men ran for the top Republican spot when former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted, but ultimately fell short.
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House Republicans are planning to hold their leadership elections on Tuesday, giving Scalise and Jordan a week to sway members to support their bid to lead Republicans for the final two years of Trump’s second term.