House enters 3rd week without speaker as GOP infighting keeps Congress at

Lisa Desjardins :

That was my colleague Rachel Scott from ABC News.

Now, let’s look at the math problem, really. This is what this all comes down to at this moment. As viewers may remember, what Mr. Jordan needs to become speaker is about 217 votes in his favor. If he gets that, he would win. That’s plan A — but, Plan B, this is how Mr. McCarthy became speaker — was a lower number. In this case, he needs at least 213 votes, but with opponents voting present, not voting for someone else, but voting present.

How many votes does Mr. Jordan have right now? Well, at the end of last week, he had 152. However, this was the news today, Geoff, that, one by one, Jim Jordan has been able to reverse some of his opponents, getting some support today. That’s something Steve Scalise wasn’t able to do.

An example is Ann Wagner of Missouri. She’s a die-hard Steve Scalise supporter, but she came out with this statement today saying she had a long conversation with Jim Jordan. And, in the end, among the reasons she is now voting for him is, she says: “He allayed my concerns about keeping government open and with a conservative kind of number for the budget.”

Jim Jordan was one of the architects of the whole government shutdown idea.