Last week, the House Republicans tried Steve Scalise on for size, then returned him (NBC [1]). Then the majority of the Republican caucus surrendered itself to Russian control by choosing Jim Jordan of Ohio to be Speaker. If he manages to get the job Tuesday, which is when he wants the first floor vote cast, it will hand the “people’s house” over to one person: Vladimir Putin.
To be fair, Jordan has cleverly hidden his Kremlin water-carrying as mere loyalty to Donald Trump. Never mind that he used the Trump 2019 impeachment hearings to advance a theory of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election (WDTN [2]), which Fiona Hill called “a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves” (Guardian [3]). Never mind that Jordan has been one of the most virulent opponents [4] of supporting Ukraine. That is all about Donald Trump … allegedly.
That narrative has a serious problem: contrary to what he would like us to believe, Jim Jordan has actually crossed swords with Trump – and when Trump was the president, no less. What was the subject? It just happened to be Trump’s supposed willingness to challenge Russian hegemony in Syria. Jordan insisted that Congress have a right to veto Trump’s threatened actions (CNN [5]).
So even when Donald Trump pretended to stand up to Russia, Jim Jordan stayed with the Kremlin and let Trump create some temporary distance. These days, he has already promised not to let funding for Ukraine reach the House floor (CBS [6]).
A Jordan Speakership would be Putin’s triumph. Pro-Ukraine Republicans in the House cannot allow that to happen. The question remains: will a Coalition govern the House? Or will the Kremlin?