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There was a broader significance to Rep. Tom Cole nominating Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker ahead of the second round of balloting. The Oklahoman is a 20-year veteran of Capitol Hill, the chairman of the House Rules Committee, and a rare member of the House GOP conference who’s known for being able to work constructively with Democrats.
So when Cole put forward Jordan’s name for the speaker’s gavel, it was intended to convey a larger message: Here was a mainstream Republican figure telling the political world that the right-wing House Judiciary Committee chairman has his imprimatur.
As it turned out, the endorsement did not have the intended effect — GOP opposition to Jordan grew between the first and second ballots — but there was nevertheless something in Cole’s remarks that stood out as notable. Roll Call reported:
In his own remarks nominating Jordan, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma drew some Democratic heckles when he acknowledged Jordan’s advocacy for cutting the federal debt, including support for controversial proposals that would reduce the generosity of popular social safety net programs. “Unlike any other speaker we have had, he’s had the courage to talk about a long-term plan and to get at the real drivers of debt,” Cole said. “We all know what they are. We all know it’s Social Security, we all know it’s Medicare, we all know it’s Medicaid.”
Oddly enough, this was a subject both parties were eager to talk about. When Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar rose to nominate House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for speaker, the Californian reminded members that the GOP nominee “supports an extreme agenda” that includes plans to cut Medicare and Social Security.
In other words, it was an unexpected moment of bipartisan convergence. The Republican nominating Jordan and the Democrat condemning Jordan said effectively the same thing about the would-be speaker: The Ohio congressman has been unembarrassed about going after two of the nation’s most important and most popular social insurance programs.
Soon thereafter, 22 House Republicans broke ranks and opposed Jordan’s nomination.
It served as a timely reminder that much of the GOP still doesn’t know what it wants to tell the public about so-called “entitlements.” Donald Trump, for example, has spent much of the year telling Republican primary voters that it’d be a mistake to nominate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president because the governor is on record supporting Social Security and Medicare cuts — which as the former president sees it, makes DeSantis unelectable.
And yet, Jordan’s position on the issue is every bit as far to the right, and Trump — along with 199 House Republicans — want to make him speaker anyway.
At this point, I’m hoping GOP leaders will get together, decide what it is they believe and want to say about Social Security and Medicare, and then let the rest of us know what they’ve concluded.