Exclusive — Jim Jordan on Prospect of Nominating McCarthy for Speaker: ‘I’d Be Happy To’

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) would be willing to be the one to nominate GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for speaker should House Republicans take back the majority in the midterms this year.

Jordan made the revelation to Breitbart News in an interview during a House Republican Conference media event on Tuesday, saying he would be “happy to” nominate McCarthy if McCarthy were to ask him to.

“I think Kevin’s done a great job. I think he’s going to be the speaker,” Jordan said. “He’s done a great job of keeping us together. You know, I don’t get into hypotheticals. If he asked me, I’d be happy to do it, but no one’s asked me, so we’ll see how all that plays out.”

McCarthy is currently the frontrunning candidate to become speaker should the GOP win the majority in nine months, though a few potential incoming candidates and pundits have expressed reservations, per reports from Business Insider and the New York Times.

McCarthy, for his part, has embraced his leadership trajectory. He used his “magic minute” to speak for nearly nine hours on the House floor in November against President Joe Biden’s agenda-defining Build Back Better legislation and made a slate of vows to Breitbart News in interviews in December, including promising not to entertain amnesty legislation and promising to strip certain controversial Democrat congressmembers of their committee positions, in the event that he is the one serving as speaker.

Jordan’s support of McCarthy is particularly symbolic considering the two’s previous history. Jordan previously challenged McCarthy for minority leader. However, the two have made up in recent years and developed an unlikely but meaningful friendship in part because of McCarthy’s newfound receptivity to the House Freedom Caucus, of which Jordan is a founding member.

Jordan’s comments also come nine months before the midterm elections, and he expressed optimism about the GOP’s prospects heading into them.

“I think there’s a great chance we win. And if we win, I think Kevin McCarthy is going to be the speaker of the House. And we’re going to focus on doing the things the American people sent us here to do, passing the right kind of legislation even though Joe Biden won’t sign it,” Jordan said.

House Republicans generally seem to have ambitious hopes heading into 2022, as indicated in part by their number one campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, announcing in November it had expanded its list of targets and was aiming to unseat a grand total of 70 Democrat members in 2022.

The Republicans are bolstered by Biden’s abysmal approval rating, which recently fell to a record low of 37 percent in an ABC News/Washington Post poll.

That same poll found Republican congressional candidates held a commanding 13-point advantage over Democrats among respondents who were registered voters and certain to vote in November.

As he was previewing Biden’s State of the Union this week on a Republican National Committee-hosted press call, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich also predicted, “I would say as a longtime observer there’s a possibility we’re going to come out of this fall with the largest House Republican majority since 1920.”

Despite the possibility of serving in the minority party next year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has announced she plans to run for reelection. Pelosi, who has held a seat in Congress for 35 years, has not indicated if she is interested in serving as her party’s leader again, but if she does seek that role, she would be breaking her vow not to serve in Democrat leadership beyond 2022.

Last year, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), a prominent leader within the Democrat caucus, nominated Pelosi for the speakership.

Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.