House speaker candidates have pulled out of a planned joint interview on Fox News next week just hours after it was announced amid fierce blowback from GOP lawmakers, the latest sign of how simmering tensions within the conference are boiling over as Republicans scramble to find a new leader following Kevin McCarthy’s stunning ouster.
Both of the leading Republican candidates for speaker – Rep. Jim Jordan and Majority Leader Steve Scalise – backtracked from the plan to be interviewed jointly on Fox News with anchor Bret Baier from the Capitol next Monday after it had been announced by the network Friday morning. A third potential speaker candidate also said he would not participate in the forum.
A source familiar with the matter said Jordan and Scalise talked Friday and they agreed it wouldn’t be wise, so the forum is now off.
I posted this on another thread. I get the feeling that this chaos is deliberate, so I’m not cheering. But I hope I just fell for my first official conspiracy theory:
won’t lie to ya brother, at this point I’m kinda inclined to agree with that assessment